Investigating The Development of Research Practices in the Engineering Curriculum

Final year undergraduate engineering students are expected to undertake an independent research project as part of their honours or capstone. However, many undergraduate students are under-prepared for this final year project. Anecdotal observations by two researcher-practitioners indicated that biomedical engineering students demonstrated a greater familiarity with the research practices of their field of engineering. This study investigates what enables and constrains the development of the research culture and practices in the undergraduate biomedical engineering curriculum from the perspectives of biomedical engineering educators. The researchers used the theory of practice architectures as a methodological approach to analyse the practices of the educators, to uncover practices which may be 'taken for granted', and to see how these practices may support the development of students as novice researchers. Findings show that induction into a research community, curriculum design and the student experience are key to the development of undergraduate students as researchers. Further research into the development of research practices in other fields of engineering is planned, as well as exploring the student perspectives of participation in the biomedical engineering research community.