Enhancing engineering education through the integration of Open Science principles: A strategic approach to systematic reviews

Abstract

The purpose of this editorial is to examine the role that systematic review protocols can play in accelerating the development of the discipline of engineering education and to explore how employing robust approaches developed in other fields can enhance the value of such reviews. The benefit of systematic reviews, as compared with narrative reviews, lies in the robust and transparent protocols employed in the collection, screening, and reporting of the studies included. Systematic reviews can identify gaps in the literature, highlight concepts that are accepted but lack empirical support, and help to evaluate the quality of research being produced for a specific topic. If structured properly, systematic reviews have the potential to be further developed into meta-analyses to examine the impact of interventions. This is particularly important for a field such as engineering education that is incorporating novel techniques to increase the effectiveness of efforts in classrooms and laboratories. However, current efforts to develop meta-analyses are hampered by a number of factors including widely varying study design (although the moderating influence of different study designs is a potential area for exploration), reporting, and concept overlap. These factors suggest that engineering education as a discipline can be classed as low consensus. Borrego (2007) outlines the low consensus nature of engineering education and concludes that key areas require further development to create a solid foundation for future development. These key areas are described by Borrego et al. (2014, p. 46):