Integration of Scholarship: Interconnections among Three Studies on Becoming an Engineering Education Researcher

This paper looks at the process by which scholars became active in and their perspectives evolved for engineering education research (EER). We use a soft systems methodology to bring together findings and insights from three separate studies investigating pathways and experiences of EER in which the authors have been active: two focusing on US scholars and one on international scholars. Despite the broad range of national and international contexts and theoretical frameworks underlying each study, the three can be connected through the lenses of identity, personal transformation, and social learning system. This provides a more comprehensive, complex, and refined picture of the phenomenon of becoming an engineering education researcher that emphasizes the importance of relationships and community interactions, the development of an interdisciplinary identity, and the ways in which these support personal transformation. Practical implications include conferences and institutions encoura