A demographic picture of academics teaching on engineering programmes in Ireland and their approaches to teaching (ATI)

This paper presents the results of an online survey (n=293) carried out on academics teaching on engineering programmes in Ireland in 2017/18. The primary purpose of the survey was to provide a selection pool for interviewees in a separate phenomenographic study, however the survey also provided some interesting findings. Previously, there has been little published data on the diversity of personnel teaching on engineering programmes in Ireland and this paper aims to provide an insight. In addition to collating the demographics of the survey respondents, and their background experiences in academic and industry, the Approaches to Teaching Inventory (ATI) [1] was also used as part of the survey. The results show that the respondents were more likely to use a Conceptual Change/Student Focussed Approach (CCSF) to teaching than an Information Transfer/Teacher Focused (ITTF) approach in the context of the modules they considered. Finally, diagrams are presented which show relationships between the Approaches to Teaching (ATI) responses and the level of programme being taught, the length of academic experience and any academic qualifications in teaching. A study of demographics and attitudes of engineering staff was undertaken in Australia in 2010/11 [2] and we hope that both these results may encourage other countries to undertake a similar survey so that we may compare and contrast between different countries in order to better understand the diversity of our engineering academic community.