An exploration of cross-disciplinary engineering education research collaborations

At a time when an increasing number of engineering academics are conducting research in the engineering education field it is important for them to recognise when they should collaborate with researchers from other disciplines. There is a growing body of literature that can be used as a guide to support the establishment and structure of cross-disciplinary groups and the approaches and processes that may be used to successfully achieve the research goals. This paper draws on this literature, and the author's experiences in cross-disciplinary research collaborations, to provide readers with an understanding of some of the key learnings in this field. It begins with a story about a successful cross-disciplinary engineering education research collaboration that the author has been involved in for more than five years. The paper then discusses how cross-disciplinary engineering education research projects may be established and describes some of the structures and processes collaborators can use to facilitate quality research outcomes.