A review study with a systematic approach: pedagogical development for educators in higher engineering education

ABSTRACT

The pedagogical development (PD) for educators in higher engineering education is indispensable to the promotion of educational changes and high-quality teaching and learning necessary to train twenty-first century engineering talents. With the expansion of various PD activities in engineering education in recent decades, there is a growing need to understand the characteristics and impact of current PD activities and to develop strategies for their further development. This study reviews 116 articles to provide an overview of current PD activity designs and the challenges reported in research on engineering education. The selected papers’ frameworks, duration and organizational formats, evaluation methods, teachers’ learning outcomes, research methods, and reported challenges are summarized. The findings of this study call for additional research on theory-driven designs for future PD activities as well as additional empirical PD studies using multiple data sources, a variety of research methods, and various analytical tools.

KEYWORDS:

• Pedagogical development
• engineering educators
• engineering education
• literature review
• systematic approach

1. Introduction

The complex challenges of the twenty-first century create increasing demand for engineering talents with professional knowledge and comprehensive competencies, such as communication and problem-solving skills, the ability to cope with uncertainty, and sustainable development competencies (Shephard 2015; Thomas 2009). To meet these needs, universities have been promoting educational change, focusing on enhancing student-centered and active learning approaches (Du et al. 2020a). Educators play an important role in implementing these active teaching and learning methods, and are thus expected to improve their teaching competencies by engaging in diverse pedagogical development (PD) activities (Devlin 2008; Holgaard et al. 2020). While current PD activities for educators share a common intention to support teaching competencies, their forms of delivery, duration, organization, evaluation methods, and outcomes all vary (Chalmers and Gardiner 2015). In general, the literature on PD calls for more attention to the impact of PD on students’ learning and long-term change in an institutional context (Du and Lundberg 2021). Diverse terms have been utilized by PD researchers, including educational development, faculty development, professional development, pedagogical development, and teacher education. Different interpretations of these terms have been used by researchers when discussing staff, training objectives, and training content (Ouellett 2010). Educational development describes teaching designs and actions that aim to improve the quality of teaching and learning and are usually undertaken by faculty members and other educators (Amundsen and Wilson 2012). Faculty development, which emerged in U.S. higher education in the 1950s, refers to the improvement of academics’ teaching effectiveness and scholarly competence (Ouellett 2010). Professional development and pedagogical development have similar meanings and include a broad range of activities that improve university faculty members’ performance and promote high-quality teaching and learning (Sheets and Schwenk 1990; Steinert et al. 2006). While professional development involves discipline-specific content and broader academic roles in education, pedagogical development focuses on the role of educators in teaching and learning. In this study, with no intention of distinguishing between these terms, we use the term ‘pedagogical development (PD)’, to refer to designs and practices aimed at improving the quality of teaching and learning.

In engineering education, various PD activities have been developed separately at the institutional, cross-institutional, and international levels (Brent, Felder, and Rajala 2006; Chuchalin, Malmqvist, and Tayurskaya 2016; Chen et al. 2021; Estes et al. 2008; Krause et al. 2018). Several studies have documented the learning outcomes achieved by engineering educators through participating in such PD activities, including increased pedagogical knowledge, changes in teacher beliefs, and more frequent use of active learning methods (Felder and Brent 2010; Guerra and Spliid 2018; Lattuca, Bergom, and Knight 2014; Marlor and Amelink 2018). Previous studies have also reported changes in teaching practices and the improvement of students’ learning outcomes (Estes et al. 2019; Du et al. 2019, 2020a; Naji et al. 2020; Van der Hoeven and Peeters 2013).

The expansion of PD activities has led prior researchers to adopt different review methods to provide overviews of PD activities over the past decades. Several systematic review studies in the higher education literature have explored the organization of PD activities and what outcomes they have achieved (Chalmers and Gardiner 2015; Gast, Schildkamp, and van der Veen 2017; Stes et al. 2010). In engineering education, a few review studies reported PD activities for engineering educators. For instance, Chisholm (1990), using the term faculty development, reviewed factors related to the establishment of PD methods and their effects on the development of effective PD policies. Using the same terminology, De Graaff (2013) outlined PD goals and strategies in engineering education in Europe, exemplifying descriptions of practices in Nordic countries. Jugdev (2007) conducted a literature review on higher education faculty development studies and proposed a PD training design for new engineering faculty members. Markedly, none of the published works in engineering education conducted a systematic review by following a predetermined protocol to illustrate diverse PD activities and discuss the effectiveness of PD activities through the analysis of empirical evidence. With the growth of PD activities in engineering education (Kerna 2012; Lattuca, Bergom, and Knight 2014), there is a need to provide an updated systematic analysis of the current PD literature to gain a comprehensive understanding of the characteristics and impact of PD and to develop strategies for future developments.

Thus, the purpose of the current study is to provide a systematic analysis of literature reporting PD activities in engineering education. We focus particularly on literature reporting activities aiming to improve the teaching competencies of educators in higher engineering education. With the awareness that the concept of professional development has also been used in literature, including a broader scope of activities supporting educators’ academic growth more than pedagogical development, in this study, we do not examine the literature on development activities for other purposes such as research and management skills. Several English terms have been used to refer to those who teach in higher education institutions, including faculty, staff, instructors, university teachers, etc. Without the intention to distinguish or compare them, we use the term educator in this study. The research questions for this study are:

1. What characterizes the pedagogical development activities for educators that have been reported in the higher engineering educational research literature with regard to frameworks, organizational formats, evaluation and outcomes, research methodologies, and challenges?

2. What are the implications for future professional development practices and research in higher engineering education?

We followed a systematic approach suggested by Jesson, Matheson, and Lacey (2011) and Borrego et al. (2014), and 116 papers are included in this study. We employed thematic data analysis to assess theories and frameworks used in the selected papers, the types of PD activities and organizational formats, evaluation and outcomes, research methods, and challenges for PD activities. Based on the overview of PD activities provided by this study, we identify potential directions for future research and propose suggestions for the optimization of future PD designs and the promotion of educational changes in both engineering courses and curricula.

2. Methodology

This review aims to comprehensively recognize relevant studies of PD in the higher engineering education field, summarize their findings, and identify future research directions for PD. Hence, we conducted a review with a systematic approach in five steps: (1) identifying research problems through a brief scoping search; (2) developing a review protocol with inclusion criteria; (3) selecting studies and assessing their quality; (4) extracting, analyzing, and synthesizing the data; and (5) reporting the findings with details of the review procedures (Jesson, Matheson, and Lacey 2011; Borrego, Foster, and Froyd 2014). Each of these steps will be elaborated in the following sections.

2.1. Identifying research problems

The search process began with several minor scoping searches (Booth, Sutton, and Papaioannou 2016). The initial scoping search was intended to familiarize the researchers with recent developments in engineering educators’ pedagogical training in higher engineering education, explore the range of literature surrounding this topic, and identify the initial research questions for the full review. Based on the initial scoping search, with the support of two library scientists in the local institution, a search strategy was developed, with the selection of appropriate search terms, alternatives, and databases.

For the preliminary scoping study, a literature search was conducted by consulting the following five databases, which are recommended by Borrego, Foster, and Froyd (2014) when researching the engineering education field: 1) Web of Science; 2) SCOPUS; 3) EBSCO (Academic Search Complete); 4) ERIC (via ProQuest); and 5) IEEE Xplore. These five databases provide multiple resources in the academic engineering field, including journal articles, conference proceedings, and other documents, and focus on practice and research as well as both international and national topics. This enabled us to investigate the diversity of current PD practices across nations. A keyword-based search of these databases with alternative words (Table 1) was performed in August 2022.

Table 1. Search terms and blocks in the databases – duplicates.

Search	Keywords
Block 1	‘staff’ OR ‘faculty’ OR ‘teacher’ OR ‘instruct*’ OR ‘profession*’ OR ‘pedagog*’
	AND
Block 2	‘develop*’ OR ‘training’ OR ‘learning’
	AND
Block 3	‘engineering educ*’
	AND
Block 4	‘higher educ*’ OR ‘HE*’ OR ‘universit*’

2.2. Developing a review protocol

Several inclusion criteria were included for review and analysis based on the research questions: (1) All selected research should be peer-reviewed empirical research or practice available in English, primarily journal articles and conference papers. (2) Studies included in this research should be confined to the period of 2000–2021. PD research emerged in the 1990s, and several studies conducted reviews on PD activities during that period; some of these described Nordic countries’ practices and were published in local languages. The period chosen for inclusion in this study follows an expansion of PD research in English (Ping et al. 2018). This choice is intended to provide an updated overview of the latest studies related to PD activities in engineering education. (3) Studies should be conducted in the context of engineering education. Articles within STEM education, which focus primarily on science, technology, and mathematics, were excluded. (4) The research should have been conducted at the university level; K-12 education was excluded. (5) Studies should focus on educators’ pedagogical learning activities, including instruction on learning and teaching methods, pedagogical knowledge, teaching practices, etc. Studies related to study programs in teacher education, teacher technical training, or staff instructions that only focused on professional knowledge in particular engineering disciplines were excluded.

The preliminary round for all field searches produced 20,272 results. We then refined the preliminary results by narrowing the keyword search to title, abstract, and keywords. This resulted in a total of 1,355 items from five databases, as shown in Figure 1. After removing duplicates (N = 127), the literature search resulted in a total of 1,228 articles for further screening.

Figure 1. Flowchart of the searching and screening process.

2.3. Selecting studies and assessing the quality

The articles were filtered and analyzed with guidance from Liberati et al. (2009): 1) identification, 2) screening, 3) eligibility, and 4) inclusion. Figure 1 illustrates this process.

In the screening process, articles were first filtered by their titles and keywords, which reduced the number of articles to 319. Then, the abstract screening phase excluded 180 articles that were irrelevant to higher engineering education and did not focus on academic faculty. The remaining articles (N = 139) were relevant and qualified for full-text screening. In this step, two authors made decisions independently on if the articles should be included, using the same Microsoft Excel template with the five inclusion criteria. After this step, 42 articles were removed. To make sure that any relevant published studies were not missed in the electronic search, the search was also supplemented by checking the reference lists of the aforementioned 97 articles for other relevant studies (Booth, Sutton, and Papaioannou 2016). This citation search yielded 10 additional articles. Furthermore, as recommended for manual journal searching by Booth, Sutton, and Papaioannou (2016), 12 additional relevant articles were found by searching key journals in engineering education, such as the Journal of Engineering Education, the International Journal of Engineering Education, and the European Journal of Engineering Education. In total, 119 articles were assessed for full-text eligibility. To ensure that no relevant articles had been mistakenly excluded, each screening process was repeated in two rounds. The full-text reading phase excluded three articles because they were not related to teachers’ pedagogical training. In the end, 116 articles were selected for open-coding analysis, comprising 48 journal articles, 64 conference papers, and four book chapters.

2.4. Extracting, analyzing, and synthesizing the data

While reading the full-text versions of the selected articles, relevant data were extracted to provide an overview of PD research in the field of engineering education. Initial themes were set through research group discussion, and included general information (title, authors, year of publication, type of publication, affiliations, etc.), frameworks, training design, duration, evaluation methods, research methods, and challenges. Then open coding was conducted for each theme. The lead author of this study served as the leading coder and conducted open coding for each initial theme. All selected papers were read multiple times, and the coding process was monitored by the research group, which included one Ph.D. student researcher and two experienced educational researchers. To enhance the validity of the data analysis process, a co-author of the study served as the second coder and conducted independent coding of 10% of the selected papers for quality checks, using the same initial themes. Inter-rater reliability was evaluated by comparing the two coders’ results at the initial theme level, resulting in over 0.85 for each theme. Discrepancies between the results produced by the two independent coders were discussed and resolved, and codes were revised accordingly in the auditing process.

3. Findings

Consistent with the analysis process, the findings offer detailed information about the theories and frameworks, PD types and organizational formats, evaluation and outcomes, research methods, and challenges reported by the included papers. The Appendix lists all 116 included papers.

3.1. General information of included papers

The included studies were characterized by the country of researchers, publication source, and publication year.

Figure 2 visualizes the number of articles from each country or set of countries, indicated as shades of blue. The majority of articles (N = 49) were authored by individuals residing in the United States, followed by India (N = 8), Denmark (N = 7), and Chile (N = 3). Two articles each were published in eight countries. Brazil, and the other 11 countries or set of countries, shown in Figure 2. published one article each. Twenty-one articles were affiliated with institutions in two or more nations, including Chile and Germany (N = 6), Denmark and China (N = 4), Denmark and Colombia (N = 2), Russia and Sweden (N = 2), Russia and Tajikistan (N = 2), Australia and Denmark (N = 1), Qatar and China (N = 1), Sweden and Denmark (N = 1), the U.S. and Singapore (N = 1), and the U.S., Korea, India and Portugal (N = 1).

Figure 2. Affiliation countries of all articles.

With regard to publication sources, a total of 48 journal articles were included, with the most prevalent publications being the International Journal of Engineering Education (N = 10), followed by the European Journal of Engineering Education (N = 9), Journal of Engineering Education (N = 8), Journal of faculty development (N = 2), International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (N = 2), Journal of Engineering Education Transformation (N = 2), and Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering (N = 2). The remaining 13 articles were published in 13 other journals either in the fields of engineering and technology education or pedagogy and teacher training. Sixty-four of the included articles are papers from conferences, including the ASEE Annual Conference (N = 30), International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (N = 7), Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) (N = 6), SEFI Annual Conference (N = 3), and International Research Symposium on PBL (IRSPBL) (N = 3). The remaining 15 conference papers are from other international conferences in the teaching and engineering education field, including the IEEE International Conference, Annual International Conference of Education (INTED), Annual Conference on Engineering Education (UICEE), and others. Four of the articles selected for this study are book chapters.

Papers published between 2000 and 2021 were included. A total of 40 articles were published prior to 2010; see Figure 3. Since 2018, the overall number of publications has grown substantially, indicating an increasing focus on PD in the engineering field. Figure 3 presents the distribution of the selected papers’ publication dates.

Figure 3. Year of publication and number of included articles.

3.2. Theories and frameworks

Thirty-four articles did not mention the theories, frameworks, or underlying concepts that they used to guide PD designs. Eighty-two articles mentioned the theories, frameworks, or underlying concepts they adopted.

The majority of these studies adopted widely used theories, frameworks, or underlying concepts, including active learning (Blum, Cadwell, and Hasenwinkel 2020; Dominguez, Truyol, and Zavala 2018; Kerst et al. 2017; Smirnova and Vatolkina 2018a, 2018b), project/problem-based learning (PBL) (Brodie and Jolly 2012; Chen et al. 2019, 2021; De Graaff 2013; Du et al. 2020a, 2020b, 2021a; Karlsson 2004; Kolmos et al. 2008; Koppikar et al. 2021; Van der Hoeven and Peeters 2013), socio-cultural theory (Chaaban et al. 2021), self-determination theory (Bouwma-Gearhart 2012), the CDIO framework (Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015; Malmqvist, Gunnarsson, and Vigild 2008), Kolb’s Learning Cycle (Guerra, Spliid, and Kolmos 2018; Henning, Bornefeld, and Brall 2007), cycle of professional practice (Fink, Ambrose, and Wheeler 2005) and constructivism learning theory (Karlsson 2004). Several researchers proposed theoretical frameworks or models for PD design and implementation, such as the ExCEEd model (Estes et al. 2008, 2019; Morse 2009; Nicklow, Marikunte, and Chevalier 2007), HPL framework, and five factors of adult learning motivation (Felder et al. 2011).

Active learning, project-/problem-based learning (PBL), and student-centered learning were the three most widely used foundations for the design of PD activities. While several articles elaborated the theoretical rationale behind their PD design, many studies only mentioned that the PD activities they describe were designed based on these theories and did not provide any detailed elaboration of the theories or frameworks.

3.3. PD types and organizational formats

In terms of types of PD for engineering educators, three themes were identified according to their duration, as shown in Figure 4:

1. The first theme is short-term training (ranging from 1–6 days to 1–9 weeks, N = 51), with training activities mainly including lectures, workshops (Brent et al. 2006 ; Estes et al. 2008; Gormaz-Lobos, Galarce-Miranda, and Hortsch 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2021d, İnelmen 2000) seminars (Bagiati et al. 2012; Conley et al. 2000; Marlor and Amelink 2018), demonstration classes (Estes et al., 2000, 2008; Conley et al. 2000), classroom observation (Edamana et al. 2012), and mentor consultation (Felder et al. 2011; Brawner et al. 2000, 2002; Brent, Felder, and Rajala 2006).

2. The second theme is academic semester-based training (N = 20), which lasted for one academic semester, ranging from 3 to 6 months. This type of training has similar PD activities to short-term training, such as seminars, workshops, and demonstration classes (Koppikar et al. 2021; Zavala et al. 2017). However, compared to short-term training with only one learning module, one-semester training was designed with different learning modules for progression learning objectives (Chuchalin, Malmqvist, and Tayurskaya 2016; Fong et al. 2019; Rummler 2014). In addition to diverse workshops, monthly meetings were held among participants and their supervisors or pedagogical experts to provide guidance and feedback on their pedagogical learning and teaching practices (Kerst et al. 2017; Morse 2009). In particular, many PD practices focus on teaching assistant training (Phillips, Kecskemety, and Delaine 2018; Rummler 2014).

3. The third theme of PD types is long-term training (One year and above, N = 33), enabling more systematic and progressive PD designs. For example, in Parker et al.’s (2016) work, a three-year multi-stage interactive PD program was designed and implemented, focusing on improving classroom learning environments, course curricula, and the pedagogical and affective behaviours of instruction. With a systematic training design, participants had the opportunity to gain pedagogical knowledge, improve their instruction skills, increase confidence in their teaching abilities, engage in active learning methods, and create professional learning and teaching communities progressively. In addition to learning activities such as courses, seminars, and communication with experts, several institutions have also provided certificates for completing PD activities based on work hours, including Aalborg University (Chen et al. 2021; Du et al. 2020b; Guerra and Spliid 2018) and Technische Universität Berlin (Rummler 2014), which could be an incentive-based means of motivating engineering faculty to engage with PD activities (Nicklow et al. 2007).

   Figure 4. Duration and the percentage of articles.

   

The remaining 12 articles did not mention the duration of the PD activities they discussed. Details are shown in the Appendix.

In terms of the organizational format, three themes for PD activities at different practice levels were identified, including within one institution, cross-local institutions, and cross-countries (Figure 5). The majority of all selected papers (N = 69) reported that their PD practices were led by one institution, meaning that these PD activities were designed and implemented within a university.

Figure 5. Organizational formats and the percentage of articles.

Twenty-three papers reported that their PD practices were practiced across local institutions, referring to collaborations in more than one educational institution in one country. These collaborations were guided by supportive government policy or national funding intended to improve engineering faculty’s understanding of student learning and help them use effective learning approaches to develop engineering talents (Estes et al. 2008; Felder et al. 2011).

The last theme of organizational formats is collaboration across countries, inducing 23 papers. This includes two sub-themes of international collaboration, including collaboration between universities from different countries and participation in international PD programs.

The first sub-theme of international collaboration involves two or more universities identifying the same learning objectives for pedagogical training, and designing and practicing the training program together (Malmqvist, Gunnarsson, and Vigild 2008). The second sub-theme of international PD collaboration involves providing engineering faculty with pedagogical training by inviting experienced experts from other institutions to participate. These collaborations include the MIT-SUTD collaboration (Bagiati et al. 2012), the PBL Masters program (Kolmos et al. 2008), the Aalborg UNESCO Centre Certificate on Basics of PBL and Curriculum Change (Chen et al. 2021; Du et al. 2020b; Guerra and Spliid 2018), and the ‘Applying CDIO Standards in Engineering Education’ program for Russian higher education institutes (Chuchalin, Malmqvist, and Tayurskaya 2016). Participants in one university receive physical or online lectures, workshops, and supervision from external instructors, and have opportunities to visit other universities and experience different campus cultures. One paper did not mention the level at which the PD activities were practiced, as it was a conceptual paper.

3.4. Evaluation and outcomes

This literature review also illustrates the evaluation methods and outcomes reported in the selected papers, as shown in Table 2. Of the 116 papers, 19 did not elaborate on which methods were used to evaluate participants’ learning outcomes and the effectiveness of the PD activities. The other 97 papers reported one or more evaluation approaches used in their PD activities. Using thematic analysis, we identified five themes related to the evaluation and outcomes of PD activities, including 1) participants’ attendance, 2) participants’ perspectives on PD activities, 3) participants’ self-reported learning gains, 4) participants’ changes in teaching practice and 5) the impact of participants’ changes in teaching practice on student learning.

Table 2. Evaluation of PD activities.

Themes	Sub-themes	No. of papers	Contents
Not mentioned	-	19	-
Participants’ attendance	-	8	- Participants’ attendance numbers/rate (No. 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 56, 90, 109)
Participants’ perspectives on PD activities	Satisfaction	22	- Participant satisfaction levels with PD programs (No. 10, 11, 12, 14, 24, 33, 34, 35, 36, 44, 46, 47, 52, 57, 58, 64, 69, 81, 86, 96, 105, 107)
	Self-perceived effectiveness	20	- Feedback on the effectiveness of the general PD design (No. 20, 21, 25, 39, 59, 68, 69, 74, 78, 79, 82, 86, 92, 107, 113, N = 15) - Feedback on the effectiveness of instructors’ support (No. 61, 78, 82, 92, 96, 104, 107, N = 7) - Feedback on the effectiveness of addressing teaching challenges (No. 1, 70, N = 2)
	Motivation	10	- Interests in pedagogical development (No. 6, 18, 38, 42, 46, 60, 82, N = 7) - Intentions to improve teaching competences (No. 6, 18, 38, 39, 50, 64, N = 6)
Participants’ self-reported learning gains	Pedagogical knowledge	31	- Pedagogical theories and approaches such as active learning, PBL, teamwork, Bloom’s Taxonomy (No. 2, 28, 29, 35, 39, 42, 44, 45, 46, 50, 66, 67, 71, 75, 82, 84, 86, 91, 92, 95, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 110, 113, 115, N = 28) - Pedagogical research (No. 2, 17, 18, 35, 38, 75, 82, 91, 99, N = 9)
	Values	29	- Changes of teacher beliefs (No. 28, 29, 30, 34, 67, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 91, 94, 106, 113, 114, N = 15) - Changes of professional agency and identity (No. 6, 16, 28, N = 3) - Importance of learning objectives (No. 2, 17, 18, 31, 110, N = 5) - Importance of building professional learning communities (No. 2, 15, 100, 101, N = 4) - Importance of having international and intercultural perspectives (No. 64, N = 1) - Importance of having interdisciplinary perspectives (No. 64, 92, 99, N = 3) - Importance of e-learning (No. 74, N = 1)
	Teaching competence	26	- Self-reported improved teaching skills (No. 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 26, 33, 44, 45, 51, 60, 66, 69, 71, 73, 75, 86, 88, 91, 99, 100, 101, 105, 108, 109, 116)
	Course / curriculum design	10	- Project reports on new course and curriculum design (No. 5, 17, 18, 28, 29, 43, 44, 62, 87, 97)
	Self-reflection	8	- Learning portfolio for self-reflection on PD experience (No. 17, 18, 28, 29, 51, 96, 111, 116)
Participants’ changes in teaching practice	Implementation of new practice	23	- Design learning objectives to guide students (No. 8, 9, 10, 11, N = 4) - Higher frequency of using new learning strategies (teamwork, active learning, PBL) (No. 2, 8, 9, 12, 10, 11, 14, 28, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 61, 67, 71, 75, 85, N = 20) - Higher frequency of using new tech tools (No. 2, 8, 9, 44, 81, 83, 85, N = 7)
Impact of changed teaching practice on participants’ students’ learning	Data from students’ perspectives on learning improvement	13	- Positive feedback on students’ learning experience (No. 31, 35, 37, 61, 90, 111, N = 6) - Improved students’ learning gains (No. 34, 37, 38, 78, 83, 84, 106, N = 7) - Feedback on teachers’ performance (No. 90, 92, 106, N = 3)
	Data from educators’ perspectives	6	- Students’ improved performance (No. 8, 9, 60, 67, 84, 85)

Note: Articles could be included in multiple rows since various themes and subthemes were identified in one article.

In the first theme, participants’ attendance, eight papers adopted participants’ attendance rate as a variable to reflect participants’ motivation and engagement (Blum, Cadwell, and Hasenwinkel 2020; Quadrato, Welch, and Albert 2005; Verleger and Velasquez 2007).

Second, the theme of participants’ perspectives on PD activities included discussions of participants’ satisfaction levels, self-perceived effectiveness, and motivations. In terms of satisfaction levels, participants were asked about their satisfaction with the training activities, learning contents, and interactions with supervisors in several papers (Brent and Felder 2001, 2003; Conley et al. 2000; Gormaz-Lobos, Galarce-Miranda, and Hortsch 2021a; Karlsson 2004; Kannan and Narayanan 2015; Tormey, Hardebolle, and Isaac 2020; Van Hemelrijck et al. 2016). Twenty studies provided data on participants’ self-perception of the effectiveness of different aspects of the PD activities, including general effectiveness (Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015; De Bartolo, Bailey, and Robinson 2012; Fong et al. 2019; Karim, Motavas, and Feduik 2012; Migotsky 2020; Morse 2009; Williams, Turrell, and Wall 2002), support from instructors and supervisors (Kerst et al. 2017; Pavelich and Streveler 2004; Van Hemelrijck et al. 2016), and how effectively challenges were addressed (Aisien and Aisien 2018; Lantada and Nunez 2021). Moreover, many researchers explored participants’ motivation for learning before and after their participation in the PD activities, with results illustrating participants’ increased motivation to learn pedagogical knowledge and use new learning methods, greater intention to improve their teaching competencies, and a greater willingness to engage with PD (Chen et al. 2021; Guerra and Spliid 2018).

The third theme was related to participants’ self-reported learning gains, which were described by the majority of selected papers with sub-themes of pedagogical knowledge, changes of values, improved teaching competencies, new course/curriculum designs, and self-reflection. In the sub-theme of pedagogical knowledge, participants learned pedagogical theories and different learning approaches, such as PBL, teamwork theories, and Bloom’s taxonomy (Ankeny et al. 2018; Guerra and Spliid 2018; Kotlyarova et al. 2021; Richards, Velasquez, and Payne 2012; Zemliansky 2021). In addition, many PD activities also emphasized participants’ deeper understanding of and higher engagement with educational research (Felder and Brent 2010; Finelli et al. 2008; Marlor and Amelink 2018; Sharma and Pandher 2018). Through PD, teachers were provided with various resources for cutting-edge educational research, learned educational research methods, and developed an understanding of the educational research paradigm, which supported them in keeping up with new learning methods and conducting educational research based on their teaching experience (Chen et al. 2021; Parker et al. 2016).

The second sub-theme is related to teachers’ changes in values, including their teacher beliefs (e.g. from traditional teaching to constructivist learning) and professional agency and identity (i.e. participants’ understanding of their roles as teachers) (Chaaban, Al-Thani, and Du 2021; Du et al. 2020a, 2020b; Nagabhushan and Sohoni 2020; Parker et al. 2016). Through PD activities teachers realized the importance of setting learning objectives for students and using different learning approaches, such as intercultural learning, interdisciplinary learning, and digital learning (Ankeny et al. 2018; Castro-Félix and Daniels 2018; Kolmos et al. 2008; Mark et al. 2011). Several papers also reported participants’ increased awareness of the importance of building professional learning communities to share experiences and support professional development (Castro-Félix and Daniels 2018; Smirnova and Vatolkina 2018a, 2018b). In many PD activities, participants’ learning gains were also assessed by their project reports, which presented their engineering curriculum design or future plans for their own courses, using new teaching and learning methods that they learned in PD activities (Blum, Cadwell, and Hasenwinkel 2020; Chen et al. 2021; Du et al. 2020a, 2020b; Gómez Puente, van Eijck, and Jochems 2015; Marquez, Sánchez, and Valera 2013). The last sub-theme is self-reflection, meaning teachers’ self-reflection on their PD experience, which was usually assessed by means of participants’ learning portfolios (Du et al. 2020b; Guerra, Spliid, and Kolmos 2018; Welch et al. 2001; Zhetessova et al. 2019).

The fourth theme, including 23 papers, was related to changes in participants’ teaching practices after training. Four articles reported that teachers had a greater tendency to design learning objectives and use these objectives to guide student learning after PD training, especially at the beginning of the courses (Brawner et al. 2002; Brent and Felder 2003). Twenty papers pointed out that participants were more likely to use new learning strategies in their courses, including teamwork, project/problem-based learning (PBL), context-based teaching, and other active learning approaches (Brawner et al. 2002; Brent, Felder, and Rajala 2006; Conley et al. 2000; Lattuca, Bergom, and Knight 2014; Marlor and Amelink 2018). They began to transfer their roles from the authority of knowledge to facilitators and have more interactions with students in their teaching practices, to support students’ self-directed learning and improve students’ learning outcomes (Du et al. 2020a). Moreover, in many PD activities, various technological and digital tools were introduced to teachers. Thus, a higher frequency of the use of new technical and digital tools (e.g. platform, software, applications, and other online resources) were also reported as changes in participants’ teaching practices (Ankeny et al. 2018; Brawner et al. 2002; Gormaz-Lobos et al. 2020a; Morales and Prince 2019).

The last theme was the evaluation of the influence of PD activities on participants’ and students’ learning experiences or learning outcomes. Of 116 papers, only a small number reported findings on this theme. Thirteen papers reported empirical data on students’ perspectives on their learning experience (Edamana et al. 2012; Felder and Brent 2010; Kerst et al. 2017; Quadrato, Welch, and Albert 2005; Welch et al. 2001), students’ learning gains (Estes et al. 2019; Finelli et al. 2008; Mendoza, Wright, and Shallcross 2019; Mourtos and Allen 1999, 2001; Van der Hoeven and Peeters 2013), and teachers’ performance in courses using new learning methods (Pavelich and Streveler 2004; Quadrato, Welch, and Albert 2005; Van der Hoeven and Peeters 2013). Positive feedback from students reflected the effectiveness of educational changes in courses and curricula, thereby indicating the value of PD activities. Other studies explored changes in student learning by collecting data from educators’ perspectives. Many teachers reported that students showed improved academic performance when they applied active learning approaches after training (Brawner, Felder, and Allen 2001, 2002; Karri and Kode 2011; Krause 2017; Mourtos and Allen 2003; Mourtos and Allen 2001). Although many studies did not provide empirical evidence on the impact of PD activities on student learning, they still emphasized the importance of evaluating PD activities at the level of changes in student learning. However, due to the high cost of effort and time and the intense difficulty of collecting meaningful data that conclusively links the improvement of student learning to changes in participants’ teaching practices after PD activities, only a few data reflected the effectiveness of PD activities for improving student learning (Brent and Felder 2001).

3.5. Research methods

Among the 116 papers, 79 were research involved while 37 papers were mainly based on the description of activities. There are five themes related to the research methodology used in selected papers, including practice, conceptual, quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method studies, shown in Figure 6. Detailed information can be found in the Appendix.

Figure 6. The percentage of articles using different research methods.

Nine papers were categorized as conceptual papers, which reported conceptual frameworks based on prior practices or proposals for future PD programs. These papers provided guidelines for PD objectives, formats and methodologies, and contents and potential methods for evaluation (Bhat, Asha, and Thomas 2013; Froyd et al. 2007; Marra and Litzinger 2000; Mendoza, Wright, and Shallcross 2019; Schaefer et al. 2013; Walkington, Christensen, and Kock 2001). For example, Bhat et al.’s (2013) framework emphasized three levels of PD objectives – teaching effectiveness, research orientation, and leadership development. To achieve an effective evaluation of PD outcomes, Walkington, Christensen, and Kock (2001) proposed a critical reflection framework with four dimensions: pedagogical content knowledge, knowledge of the characteristics of learners, knowledge of teaching contexts, and knowledge of educational purposes, ends, and aims. Lantada and Nunez’s (2021) work further presented a systematic framework of strategies to deal with the challenges faced by students, teachers, and educational institutions, such as limited resources provided to students and teachers, a lack of collaboration between researchers from different departments and faculties, and the need to provide central facilities for education.

Seventy of the 116 papers reported the empirical research designs, including 39 quantitative, 14 qualitative, and 17 mixed-method studies. The majority of the PD papers relied on self-reported data, including the self-assessment of learning outcomes, interviews, and self-reflection. Among the 39 quantitative research papers, most studies used newly-proposed analytical tools or instruments derived from the literature to collect quantitative data, such as the Value, Expectancy, and Cost of Testing Educational Reforms Survey (VECTERS) (Ankeny et al. 2018), the SUCCEED survey (Brent and Felder 2003; Brawner et al. 2002), the Classroom Practice Strategies Survey (CPSS) (Krause et al. 2018), and other self-developed surveys on participants’ satisfaction, learning outcomes, and changes in teaching practice. A variety of specific research methods were used in the qualitative studies, including interviews (N = 8), document analysis (N = 4), observation (N = 2), narrative inquiry (N = 1), and an open-ended survey (N = 1). Four studies adopted more than one of these methods to collect qualitative data (Du et al. 2020a, 2021b; Mark et al. 2011; Acosta Peña, Tomás-Folch, and Feixas 2017). Seventeen papers utilized mixed methods and collected both quantitative and qualitative data to allow evaluation triangulation. Specifically, for exploratory mixed-method studies, interviews about the engineering faculty’s perspectives on goals, motivation, or challenges were conducted first, and surveys were then designed to produce quantitative data. These explanatory mixed-method studies adapted survey instruments to evaluate participants’ satisfaction levels, learning outcomes, or changes in attitudes, while qualitative data were used to further explain the statistical findings by presenting participants’ narratives about their training experiences and changes in practices.

Moreover, in several cases, the authors subsequently published a series of papers to illustrate their PD studies using different research methods, combining practice papers to introduce the PD design, quantitative studies to measure the effectiveness of PD activities or participants’ learning outcomes, and qualitative studies to tell participants’ stories (Brent, Felder, and Rajala 2006; Estes et al. 2008, 2019; Gormaz-Lobos et al. 2020a, 2020b, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2021d; Guerra and Spliid 2018a, 2018b; Krause 2017, 2018). In general, various types of studies and research methods have been applied in the field of PD activities in engineering education, providing several different angles from which to assess the characteristics and effectiveness of PD activities.

3.6. Challenges

Forty-five of the 116 papers included in the review reported diverse challenges perceived by different stakeholders. Four themes related to challenges were identified – the individual level, the institutional level, the national educational system level, and the cultural level. Four themes and related subthemes are shown in Table 3.

Table 3. Challenges of pedagogical development activities.

Levels	For teachers
Individual level	Knowledge - Lack of background pedagogical knowledge (No. 17, 18, 39, 42, 66, 70, 109, N = 7) - Gaps between pedagogy and the engineering paradigm (No. 17, 18, 73, N = 3) - Lack of methodological resources (No. 20, N = 1) Teamwork - Effective teamwork with other teachers in training programs (No. 17, 18, N = 2) - Limited communication with colleagues about learning methods and teaching practices (No. 20, 28, 70, 87, N = 4) Attitudes - Difficulty in switching from traditional learning to active learning (No. 17, 18, 28, 29, 50, 61, N = 6) - Limited changes in teachers’ beliefs and influence on practice (No. 16, 28, 29, 39) - More attention paid to research rather than teaching, and fear of negative evaluations and their effect on tenure (No. 61, 63, 70, 75, 87, 98, N = 6) - Hesitancy about using new teaching methods and high pressure for change (No. 29, 51, 66, 85, N = 4) Practice - Difficulty of designing effective practice after training (No. 18, N = 1) - Students’ apprehensions about changes in the teaching and learning approaches (No. 50, 61, 70, 86, N = 4) - Heavy workload and time costs caused by changes (No. 50, 51, 70, 87, 113, N = 5)
Institutional level	Institutional cultures on encouraging teachers’ motivation - Difficulty of motivating most engineering faculty members to participate (No. 12, 8, 23, 37, 64, 88, 90, 98, 105, N = 9) - Low motivation of faculty to change teaching practices (No. 20, 27, N = 2) - Difficulty of attracting the right people (No. 23, 113, N = 2) Collaboration between departments - Low cooperation between various departments (No. 20, 98, N = 2) - An absence of interdisciplinary collaboration (No. 1, N = 1) Effective and sustainable PD design - Lack of effective and continuous PD activities for participants (No. 34, 53, 57, N = 3) - Lack of continuous funding or financial resources (No. 10, 20, 34, 42, 75, N = 5) - The relevance of a faculty development program to teaching strategies for general education and to different disciplines (No. 27, 86, 88, 103, 105, 109, 113, N = 7) - Lack of different training designs for early-career, mid-career, and late-career teachers (36, N = 1) - Technical support for PD activities (No. 1, 37, 51, 57, 64, N = 5) - Challenges in inviting experts and mentors (No. 88, N = 1) Track of follow-up practices - Insufficient faculty qualification/loss of participants’ interests as soon as the reward is collected (No. 20, 21, 23, 98, N = 4) - Detailed planning and actual implementation (No. 17, 18, 29, 37, 41, 51, 81, 86, 105, N = 9) - Difficulty of finding an instant measure of the effect of such a training program and its impact on the teachers in the long run (No. 55, 89, 98, 109, 114, N = 5) - Lack of emphasis on the assessment of student learning outcomes (No. 1, N = 1) - Lack of support for those attempting to change (No. 61, N = 1) - Limited infrastructure for active learning (No. 75, N = 1)
Educational system level	- Low cooperation between various university structures and departments (No. 20, N = 1) - The contradiction between government policies (No. 29, N = 1) - Negotiation between administrative work requirements, teaching commitment in the institutions, and the research work required by the course (No. 86, N = 1) - Future curriculum reform in local university after training/Generalization based on successful experience in other institutions (No. 17, 18, 28, 64, N = 4)
Cultural level	- Language barriers for international teachers (No. 17, 18, 50, 103, N = 4) - Different learning habits and learning cultures between countries (No. 18, 29, 103, N = 3)

Challenges at the individual level

Challenges at the individual level are issues, constraints, and difficulties faced by teachers as participants in PD activities; see Table 3. The first sub-theme of challenges at the individual level is a lack of background pedagogical knowledge. In many cases, teachers from engineering disciplines were not familiar with pedagogical theories and pedagogy research paradigms, which could lead to them finding it difficult to fully understand complex educational theories and apply those theories to teaching practice, especially in the early stage of training (Verleger and Velasquez 2007; Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015). The second sub-theme covers collaboration between participants from different engineering disciplines, departments, or universities, including the challenges of ineffective in-group communication, ineffective teamwork, conflicts of opinion, and lack of communication with colleagues (Chen et al. 2021; Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015; Du et al. 2020a; Lantada and Nunez 2021). Some studies thus called for more communication to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experience about learning methods and teaching practices (Du et al. 2020a; Naukkarinen and Malmi 2004). The third sub-theme is related to individual attitudes. Change in attitudes and beliefs is always a long process. Even though teachers were exposed to active learning approaches and understood the benefits of student-centered learning, it was not easy for them to switch from traditional learning to active learning (Chen et al. 2021; Guerra, Spliid, and Kolmos 2018; Kerst et al. 2017). For some participants, changes in their teacher beliefs from traditional teaching to constructivist learning were limited after training; this indicates that their teaching practice might not be significantly influenced by their PD activities (Chaaban, Al-Thani, and Du 2021; Du et al. 2020a; Fong et al. 2019). Moreover, due to promotion requirements and university incentive systems, many teachers paid more attention to research rather than teaching (Kerst et al. 2017; Kolmos and Vinther 2004; Lantada and Nunez 2021). Although they grasped the effectiveness of active learning methods, the process of change involves a significant time cost, a heavier workload, and great efforts from teachers, and may not succeed on the first attempt. Due to the high pressure for change, teachers feared negative evaluations of their professional performance and were hesitant about switching to new teaching and learning methods (Du et al. 2020b; Guerra, Spliid, and Kolmos 2018; Kotlyarova et al. 2021; Mourtos and Allen 2003). The last individual challenge sub-theme is related to teachers’ practice of changes after training. Issues around making effective teaching changes, designing effective learning plans for students, choosing appropriate assessment methods, dealing with students’ apprehensions about changes in learning approaches, and handling heavy workloads and time costs were reported, especially for those who had only performed short-term PD activities (Chen et al. 2021; Guerra and Spliid 2018; Lantada and Nunez 2021; Mourtos and Allen 2003; Williams, Turrell, and Wall 2002). It is therefore important to design continuous and progressive PD activities for the engineering faculty.

Challenges at the institutional level

Challenges at the institutional level refer to challenges reported by educators and researchers in addressing issues around institutions. At this level, the first sub-theme is institutional cultures on encouraging teachers’ motivation. Many papers reported the challenges of creating the institutional culture of enhancing engineering teachers’ motivation to join (Brent and Felder 2001; De Graaff 2004; Kolmos et al. 2008; Tormey, Hardebolle, and Isaac 2020). Engineering faculty were found to have low motivation to participate in PD activities and change their teaching practices (Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015; Dominguez, Truyol, and Zavala 2018; Nicklow, Marikunte, and Chevalier 2007; Quadrato, Welch, and Albert 2005; Schaefer 2013). Information asymmetry has been identified as another challenge. Although some educational institutions had strategically propagandized these PD programmes, sometimes it remained difficult to attract the right people (De Graaff 2004; Williams, Turrell, and Wall 2002).

The second sub-theme is the challenge for collaboration between departments. Due to teachers’ low motivation to engage with PD and educational changes, educational institutions also faced challenges in promoting collaboration between various departments and disciplines (Aisien and Aisien 2018; Schaefer 2013).

The third sub-theme, as one of the biggest challenges at the institutional level, is how to develop effective and sustainable PD designs. Most current PD activities described in the reviewed literature are short-term training programs, while many researchers emphasized the benefits of continuous PD activities on participants’ learning outcomes, changes in beliefs, and changes in practices (Estes et al. 2019; Parker et al. 2016). However, due to the lack of continuous financial resources and high time and effort costs, it is not easy to fully implement a progressive training design (Brent and Felder 2001; Gibson et al. 2001; Marlor and Amelink 2018). Moreover, while the current PD designs usually provide teaching strategies for general education, teachers from different disciplines might have specific needs for teaching and learning, which can mean that PD activities have low relevance in specific disciplines from teachers’ perspectives (Dominguez, Truyol, and Zavala 2018; Taran et al. 2009; Verleger and Velasquez 2007). Similarly, teachers at different stages of their careers had different demands, and thus, sustainable PD activities provided by educational institutions also need to be tailored to early-career, mid-career, and late-career teachers (Felder et al. 2011). Other challenges related to a sustainable PD design included a lack of technical support for training activities (Aisien and Aisien 2018; Guerra, Spliid, and Kolmos 2018) and a lack of the experts and mentors needed to facilitate participants’ learning (Nicklow, Marikunte, and Chevalier 2007).

The last sub-theme of challenges at the institutional level is tracking teachers’ follow-up practices. As many papers reported, participants might lose interest in PD and educational changes as soon as they collect the reward or certificate for the PD activities (Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015; De Graaff 2004; Schaefer 2013). It is also difficult for educational institutions to instantly measure the extent to which teachers actually implement educational changes, assess the effect of such training activities on participants’ teaching beliefs and practices in the long run, and explore the influence of this on students’ learning outcomes (Aisien and Aisien 2018; Fuglem 2004; Huang, Li, and Kuang 2012; Zavala et al. 2017). In addition, the lack of support from educational institutions and infrastructure for active learning also limited teachers’ attempts to change their practices (Kerst et al. 2017; Marlor and Amelink 2018). Thus, educational institutions aimed to promote educational changes need to provide additional resources and supportive policies related to flexible curricular standards, incentive systems for teachers, financial support for teaching practices, and usage of infrastructure (Du et al. 2020b).

Challenges at the national educational level

Challenges at the educational system level are challenges faced by national educational systems and governments which are trying to implement PD. When promoting educational changes, top-down support is always needed. However, changing the educational system of an entire country is a difficult and long-term process. Many challenges at the national educational level were reported by selected papers, including low levels of cooperation between various departments and universities (Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015), contradictions between government policies (Du et al. 2020b), and the difficulty of transferring successful experiences in other institutions to local practices (Du et al. 2020a, 2020b; Kolmos et al. 2008; Nagabhushan and Sohoni 2020). Although teachers wished to promote educational changes in their courses, they still needed to follow rigid and inflexible curricular standards that were set by the national higher education system and might not be changed for years, requiring teachers to balance changes in their teaching practice and their ability to meet curricular standards (Du et al. 2020b). Negotiation between administrative work standards, institutional teaching commitments, and research work requirements can be a challenging process (Nagabhushan and Sohoni 2020).

In many cases described in the selected papers, external experts with experience in successfully applying educational changes were invited to participate in the PD activities. However, it was not easy to apply others’ successful experiences to the participants’ own institutions (Du et al. 2020a, 2020b; Kolmos et al. 2008). For example, in the Aalborg PBL training programs, participants gained systematic knowledge of PBL and experienced a systemic PBL practice – the Aalborg PBL model. However, while the implementation of PBL at Aalborg University was applied at the curriculum level, it is difficult for many other institutions to reform a traditional teaching system with a systemic implementation of PBL. Teachers thus needed to transfer and generalize what they learned from PD activities to their local institutions, within the framework of the current curricular setting in their local educational systems (Du et al. 2020a; Kolmos et al. 2008).

Challenges at the cultural level

The cultural level includes challenges related to cultural background, including languages, nationalities, and cultural customs. Language barriers were reported as challenges in many international PD programs. Non-native speakers of English not only faced the challenge of gaps between engineering and education, but also translation issues due to their unfamiliarity with the educational terminology, which could negatively influence their learning experience and outcomes (Chen et al. 2021; Guerra, Spliid, and Kolmos 2018). Moreover, for such international PD activities, differences in learning cultures between countries became challenges for teachers to overcome in the process of collaborative learning and communication with others (e.g. team members, classmates, and supervisors). Coming from different countries and disciplines, teachers had different ways of thinking, working habits, preferences for collaboration, research paradigms, and world views, which could lead to gaps in their understanding of others’ perspectives (Du et al. 2020b; Taran et al. 2009).

4. Discussion

In the previous section, we reported findings from the review of selected literature in the field of PD in engineering education, which identified a wide range of current PD practices and their theories or frameworks, PD types and organization formats, evaluation and outcomes, research methods, and challenges. These findings have the following practical implications for future PD initiatives.

4.1. Setting goals for PD and adopting learning theories

First, as less than half of the reviewed studies reported a solid theoretical foundation, we suggest future initiatives to 1) clarify the goals of PD and 2) adopt relevant adult learning theories to support PD design and guide the evaluation of the effectiveness of PD activities in engineering education. In particular, theories that support adult learners as active learners (Soto and Marzocchi 2021), encourage their participation and proactivity (Bouwma-Gearhart 2012), and highlight collaborative learning (Lantada and Nunez 2021; Du et al. 2019) have proven to be useful theoretical foundations and to guide the design of training objectives. Thus, this study calls for more theory-driven PD research with a detailed elaboration on the theoretical rationale for the study, clearly defined goals, and criteria for evaluation.

4.2. Encouraging PD activities with long-term impacts

Second, the duration of PD activities can be impacted by the institution’s facilities and financial budget. The majority of the selected papers reported on short-term PD activities, which needed less time to fit into participants’ schedules and might thus attract more participants. However, although short-term PD activities can provide key information and overviews of pedagogical knowledge and learning methods, the professional development of educators is a career-long and dynamic process, which requires the engagement of all parties, continuous training, and time to practice, reflect, learn, and practice again in order to achieve the goals of changes in individuals’ teacher beliefs and teaching behaviours, as well as the reform of educational systems (Ankeny et al. 2018; Du et al. 2020a; Lyngdorf et al. 2022). We suggest that PD can be seen as providing both individual career development and institutional benefits in the long run, and that meaningful PD activities with long-term impacts need to be given priority. More attention needs to be paid to the development of a systemic PD design that combines short-term and long-term training activities to achieve different learning objectives and continuous professional development.

4.3. More intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration on PD

Third, more than half of the selected articles reported on PD activities within one institution, while prior studies have called for more collaboration between different departments, universities, and countries (Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015; Schaefer 2013). On the one hand, teachers from different disciplines had specific demands and learning expectations for PD activities, while most current PD activities are designed for use in general higher education (Brent and Felder 2003; Dominguez, Truyol, and Zavala 2018; Nagabhushan and Sohoni 2020). Thus, educators could benefit from a social network that gives them more opportunities to share teaching experiences, apply new teaching and learning methods, analyze the challenges they face, and explore possible strategies together with teachers with backgrounds in similar disciplines from the same or other universities (Brent and Felder 2003; Chen et al. 2021; Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist 2015). On the other hand, the lack of interdisciplinary collaboration has also been pointed out as an important challenge for current PD activities (Aisien and Aisien 2018). This challenge requires educational researchers to redesign PD as a broader social learning system. In this system, networking and interdisciplinary collaboration become common practices, allowing engineering teachers to develop interdisciplinary, international, and intercultural perspectives and improve transferable skills (Chaaban, Al-Thani, and Du 2021; Kolmos et al. 2008; Sharma and Pandher 2018).

4.4. Addressing multiple dimensions of educators’ professional learning in the evaluation of PD

Fourth, the evaluation of PD activities for engineering educators should be 1) well-designed from the start, 2) their overall goals and theoretical foundation should be aligned, and 3) they should focus on having a long-term impact on teaching and learning. The majority of papers selected for this review focused on the evaluation of learning outcomes, and data were collected at the end of or soon after the PD activities. A few studies assessed changes in teachers’ practice over time and the influence of these changes on their students’ learning outcomes. This pattern may result from the high time cost and intense difficulty of collecting meaningful data that links student learning to changes in teaching practices resulting from PD activities (Brent and Felder 2001). However, an important objective of PD activities and teacher education is the improvement of teaching quality and student learning. When evaluating the effectiveness and quality of PD activities, the key question is, whether and how these PD activities actually change participants’ teaching practices over time and thereby improve student learning (Stes et al. 2010). Multiple methods and layers of evaluation should thus be used to establish a comprehensive picture, ranging from short-term to long-term evaluation, that includes both teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Longitudinal research could be helpful as a way of further investigating factors which may impact the quality of PD activities, exploring engineering educators’ follow-up changes in their teaching practices after training, and comparing different teaching practices between teachers from various disciplines and departments and the influence of these differences on student learning (Sabah and Du, 2018; Steinert et al. 2006; Du and Lundberg 2021b; Du et al. 2022b).

4.5. Multiple research methods including conceptual frameworks and empirical studies

Fifth, this review identified the methodological strengths and weaknesses of the current literature. One-third of the selected papers described PD practices, illustrated different PD designs, and shared practical experiences. Still, these papers neither presented a clear research methodology nor provided empirical evidence for the effectiveness of these PD designs. While sharing experiences on PD practices is an important first step, it is also meaningful to document their design, process, and outcome through evaluation research, including theoretical guidance and empirical evidence. The majority of the empirical studies selected for this review used self-reported data, such as participants’ self-assessments of learning outcomes, self-reflections on learning experiences, and self-perceived changes in teaching behaviours. Undoubtedly, participants’ perspectives on learning gains are important components of successful PD activities; however, self-reported data alone cannot reveal various aspects of the effectiveness of PD activities’ impact on changes in teaching practices and influence on student learning. In this regard, multiple data sources help provide a comprehensive picture of how certain PD activities affect teaching and learning. The effectiveness of PD outcomes may be evidenced not only through engagement in the process, but also through outcomes in terms of changes in practices, engagement with different stakeholders, different ways of collecting data, and longitudinal studies (Lantada and Nunez 2021; Stes et al. 2010). Moreover, many studies included in this review collected quantitative data by designing and using questionnaires, but less than half of the studies elaborated on the psychometric properties of questionnaires and the validation processes they used. Future research should consider adopting analytical tools that have already been tested for validity and reliability, or elaborating the validation process for newly developed analytical tools (Steinert et al. 2006). We, therefore, call for more empirical PD studies with multiple data sources and different research methods. In particular, mixed methods and Q methodology are recommended, since these could provide a comprehensive picture of the PD process, its outcomes, and its impacts on teaching and learning (Du et al. 2022a).

4.6. Institutional engagement to motivate individual engagement

Last but not least, while various challenges faced by individuals, institutions, and educational systems were identified, efforts are needed from both engineering educators and engineering institutions to overcome these challenges.

For engineering educators, it is important to develop an awareness that professional development is one of the primary responsibilities of college-level staff (Brent and Felder 2003). They are encouraged to participate in educational research based on their practical experience, which contributes to the development of their role identity as an engineering expert as well as an educational researcher (Chaaban, Al-Thani, and Du 2021; Du et al. 2019, 2021a; Guerra, Nørgaard, and Du 2023).

As for institutions, engineering departments could focus on strengthening their internal faculty development efforts instead of entirely relying on campus-wide educational centers to lead the improvement of teaching and learning; this would provide opportunities for greater disciplinary relevance in PD activities (Brawner et al. 2002; Brent and Felder 2001).

At the university level, it is important to create a campus culture that facilitates pedagogical and professional development by providing supportive policies and administrative strategies, designing social learning systems for teachers, optimizing the incentive system to balance teaching and research, and providing relevant resources and tools (Chaaban, Al-Thani, and Du 2021; Du et al. 2019, 2020a; Felder et al. 2011). To improve the quality of teaching and learning, engineering institutions need to not only organize various PD activities (e.g. workshops with educational learning material), but also provide support to follow up on actual changes in educators’ practice after participating in PD activities as an indispensable component of the professional development process. Without attention to practical follow-ups, changes will not automatically take place after the training activities end (Brent and Felder 2003). Greater flexibility in curricular standards should be given to teachers who plan to make educational changes in their courses (Felder et al. 2011; Krishnan 2018).

While engineering faculty are encouraged to join PD activities and practice new teaching approaches, the effort they put into changing their teaching practices should be considered in their performance assessments, and their workload should be reduced to support these practices (Du et al. 2020b).

To encourage international collaboration on PD activities, it is important for administrators and program designers to understand the culture and educational systems of participants’ home countries, so that they can communicate effectively with participants and provide professional suggestions for participants’ practical ideas, which are based on their own culture (Bagiati et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2019). Future scholars should further explore and discuss strategies that could overcome these barriers and challenges at different levels, and optimize PD designs.

5. Limitation

This review has several limitations. First, we acknowledge the limitation of current blocks of search terms. Based on an initial scoping review, related terms used with high frequency in literature were selected; however, multiple papers might use other alternative terms and not include the terms selected in this review study. In addition, several important papers related to the influence of teachers’ changes in teaching practice after training on student learning might have been left out because these papers, despite focusing on changes in student learning, might not mention PD in their titles and abstracts. For example, using the Q methodology, Du and her colleagues (2020c, 2022a) reported the improved learner agency enactment of students in a PBL context, where the instructors received pedagogical training on PBL before these courses and changed the course design from traditional lectures to PBL. However, according to the instructions from Borrego, Foster, and Froyd (2014), the first two steps of searching and screening articles are usually conducted in titles and abstracts. Since the information about pedagogical training was only provided in the research context in full text rather than in the title or abstract, this paper was not included in this review based on the current search strategy, even though it is very relevant to the review topic and reflects the influence of PD activities on students’ learning outcomes. Thus, we call for more research using alternative search terms and screening methods, such as key author and reference list searches, for future literature reviews on this topic. Third, this review was also limited to the field of engineering education, five databases, and from 2000 to 2021. There is a lack of information on PD in non-English journals, books, institutional reports, non-academic articles, and other databases. Another limitation of this review is that limited information about factors impacting the effectiveness of PD activities was analyzed and reported. More details on training context, factors impacting training quality, different teachers’ follow-up teaching behaviours, and comparisons between different teacher groups should be analyzed and reported in future review studies.

6. Conclusion

Using a systematic approach, this review provides an overview of the characteristics of current PD activities in engineering education, based on an analysis of 116 articles from five databases published in the last two decades. The theories and frameworks, PD types and organizational formats, evaluations and outcomes, research methods, ad challenges discussed in these papers are all summarized. In order to proceed with PD, we have reached a stage where it is important to gain a deeper understanding of engineering faculty’s perspectives, practices, and influence on student learning through PD activities. Future PD activities should be theory-driven with clearly defined goals, evaluation criteria, and research agendas to document the process and outcomes. More insight could be gained from multiple methods for PD activity organization and well-designed research, using different research methods and diverse data sources. Longitudinal studies are needed to assess the long-term influence of PD activities on both teachers and students. Moreover, based on this review’s summary of the challenges facing PD activities reported in selected articles, future research could further explore and discuss possible strategies for overcoming these challenges, improving the quality of PD activities, and achieving the sustainable development of engineering education.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Prof. Anette Kolmos for her inspiring comments and constructive suggestions on this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Appendix 1

Table A1. General information of selected papers (N = 116).

No.	Paper	Research methods	Theories or frameworks	PD types	Organization format	Region
1	Aisien and Aisien (2018)	Quantitative (Survey)	Not specified	Not specified	Cross local institutions	Nigeria
2	Ankeny et al. (2018)	Quantitative (Survey)	Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation Coburn’s sustainable innovation scaling	Long-term	Within one institution	U.S.
3	Bagiati et al. (2012)	Description of activities	Not specified	Long-term	Cross countries	U.S. and Singapore
4	Bhat, Asha, and Thomas (2013)	Conceptual	Three Tier Model of Professionalism	Long-term	Within one institution	India
5	Blum, Cadwell, and Hasenwinkel (2020)	Description of activities	Active Learning Student-centered Learning	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
6	Bouwma-Gearhart (2012)	Qualitative (Interview)	Self-Determination Theory	One semester	Within one institution	U.S.
7	Brawner et al. (2000)	Description of activities	Not specified	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
8–9	Brawner, Felder, and Allen (2001, 2002)	Quantitative (Survey)	Not specified	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
10	Brent and Felder (2001)	Description of activities	Not specified	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
11	Brent and Felder (2003)	Quantitative (Survey)	Not specified	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
12	Brent, Felder, and Rajala (2006)	Description of activities	Not specified	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
13	Brodie and Jolly (2012)	Mixed method	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Short-term	Within one institution	Australia
14	Conley et al. (2000)	Quantitative (Survey)	T4E Model	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
15	Castro-Félix and Daniels (2018)	Qualitative (Document analysis)	Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)	Long-term	Within one institution	Mexico
16	Chaaban, Al-Thani, and Du (2021)	Qualitative (Narrative inquiry)	Subject-centered socio-cultural theory	Short-term	Within one institution	Qatar
17–18	Chen et al. (2019, 2021)	Qualitative (Interview)	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Long-term	Cross countries	Denmark and China
19	Choi et al. (2021)	Mixed method	Skills Perception Inventory	One semester	Within one institution	U.S.
20–21	Chuchalin, Tayurskaya, and Malmqvist (2015, 2016)	Quantitative (Survey)	CDIO Framework	One semester	Cross countries	Russia and Sweden
22	Coelho and Grimoni (2014)	Description of activities	Not specified	Long-term	Within one institution	Brazil
23	De Graaff (2004)	Conceptual	Faculty Development Strategies	Short-term	Within one institution	Netherlands
24	De Graaff (2013)	Description of activities	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Short-term	Within one institution	Denmark
25	De Bartolo, Bailey, and Robinson (2012)	Quantitative (Survey)	Not specified	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
26	De Chenne et al. (2012)	Quantitative (Survey)	Not specified	Not specified	Within one institution	U.S.
27	Dominguez, Truyol, and Zavala (2018)	Description of activities	Active Learning	Long-term	Within one institution	Chile
28	Du et al. (2020a)	Qualitative (Document analysis and interview)	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	One semester	Cross countries	Denmark and China
29	Du et al. (2020b)	Mixed method (Survey and Interview)	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	One semester	Cross countries	Denmark and China
30	Du et al. (2021a, 2021b)	Qualitative (Interview and Observation)	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	One semester	Cross countries	Qatar and China
31	Edamana et al. (2012)	Description of activities	Not specified	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
32	Inelmen (2000)	Description of activities	Not specified	Short-term	Within one institution	Turkey
33	Estes et al. (2008)	Quantitative (Survey)	ExCEEd Model	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
34	Estes et al. (2019)	Description of activities	ExCEEd Model	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
35	Felder and Brent (2010)	Quantitative (Survey)	Not specified	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
36	Felder et al. (2011)	Conceptual	HPL framework Five Factors of Adult Learning Motivation	Long-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
37	Fink, Ambrose, and Wheeler (2005)	Description of activities	Cycle of Professional Practice	Long-term	Within one institution	U.S.
38	Finelli et al. (2008)	Quantitative (Survey with open-ended questions)	Not specified	One semester	Cross local institutions	U.S.
39	Fong et al. (2019)	Mixed method	Social Cognitive Career Theory	One semester	Cross local institutions	U.S.
40	Froyd et al. (2007)	Conceptual	Not specified	Not specified	Not specified	U.S.
41	Fuglem (2004)	Description of activities	Not specified	Not specified	Within one institution	Norway
42	Gibson et al. (2001)	Description of activities	Not specified	Long-term	Within one institution	Denmark Finland
43	Gómez Puente, van Eijck, and Jochems (2015)	Quantitative (Survey)	Design-based learning (DBL)	Long-term	Within one institution	Netherlands
44–49	Gormaz-Lobos et al. (2020a, 2020b, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2021d)	Mixed method	A Model for teacher training on Engineering Pedagogy	Short-term	Cross countries	Chile and Germany
50–51	Guerra et al. (2018a, 2018b)	Quantitative (Survey)	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL) Kolb’s Learning Cycle	Short-term	Cross countries	Denmark and Colombia
52	Gurbuz (2002)	Description of activities	Not specified	Long-term	Cross local institutions	Turkey
53	Henning, Bornefeld, and Brall (2007)	Description of activities	Kolb’s Learning Cycle	Long-term	Within one institution	Germany
54	Holgaard et al. (2020)	Description of activities	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Short-term	Cross countries	Denmark
55	Huang, Li, and Kuang (2012)	Description of activities	Not specified	Short-term	Within one institution	China
56	Jala and Saravanan (2017)	Description of activities	Not specified	Short-term	Within one institution	India
57	Kannan and Narayanan (2015)	Quantitative (Survey)	Information and Communication Technology (ICT)	Short-term	Within one institution	India
58	Karlsson (2004)	Description of activities	Constructivism learning theory Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	One semester	Within one institution	Sweden
59	Karim, Motavas, and Feduik (2012)	Quantitative (Survey)	Team Based Learning (TBL)	Short-term	Within one institution	Canada
60	Karri and Kode (2011)	Quantitative (Survey)	LBD and Mentoring Model	Short-term	Within one institution	India
61	Kerst et al. (2017)	Quantitative (Survey)	Active Learning	Long-term	Within one institution	U.S.
62	Kolmos et al. (2001)	Description of activities	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Long-term	Within one institution	Denmark
63	Kolmos and Vinther (2004)	Description of activities	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Long-term	Within one institution	Denmark
64	Kolmos et al. (2008)	Mixed method	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Long-term	Cross countries	Denmark
65	Koppikar et al. (2021)	Description of activities	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	One semester	Within one institution	India
66	Kotlyarova et al. (2021)	Quantitative (Survey)	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Not specified	Within one institution	Russia
67	Krause (2017)	Qualitative (Interview)	Student-centered Learning	Long-term	Within one institution	U.S.
68	Krause et al. (2018)	Quantitative (Survey)	Student-centered Learning	Long-term	Within one institution	U.S.
69	Krishnan (2018)	Quantitative (Survey)	Not specified	Short-term	Cross local institutions	India
70	Lantada and Nunez (2021)	Conceptual	Not specified	Not specified	Within one institution	Spain
71	Lattuca, Bergom, and Knight (2014)	Quantitative (Survey)	Faculty Motivation Conceptualization	Not specified	Cross local institutions	U.S.
72	Lewandowski and Purdy (2001)	Description of activities	Not specified	Long-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
73	Malmqvist, Gunnarsson, and Vigild (2008)	Qualitative (Interview)	CDIO Framework	Long-term	Cross countries	Sweden and Denmark
74	Mark et al. (2011)	Qualitative (Open-ended survey and document analysis)	Not specified	Short-term	Within one institution	Hong Kong
75	Marlor and Amelink (2018)	Mixed method	Context-based Teaching	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
76	Marra and Litzinger (2000)	Conceptual	Developing Your Faculty Development Model	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
77	Martin et al. (2019)	Description of activities	Four Dimensions of Teaching in a Diverse Classroom	One semester	Within one institution	U.S.
78	Mendoza, Wright, and Shallcross (2019)	Conceptual	TDP Framework	Short-term	Within one institution	Australia
79	Migotsky (2020)	Quantitative (Survey with open-ended questions)	Not specified	Long-term	Within one institution	U.S.
80	Minin et al. (2013)	Description of activities	Staff Professional Development Principles	Short-term	Within one institution	Russia
81	Morales and Prince (2019)	Quantitative (Survey)	Four Categories of Change Strategies	One semester	Within one institution	U.S.
82	Morse (2009)	Quantitative (Survey)	ExCEEd Teaching Model	One semester	Within one institution	U.S.
83–84	Mourtos and Allen (1999, 2001)	Mixed method	Model of Learning Styles Inventory	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
85	Mourtos and Allen (2003)	Quantitative (Survey)	Model of Learning Styles Inventory	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
86	Nagabhushan and Sohoni (2020)	Mixed method	Not specified	Long-term	Within one institution	India
87	Naukkarinen and Malmi (2004)	Description of activities	Not specified	Long-term	Within one institution	Finland
88	Nicklow, Marikunte, and Chevalier (2007)	Quantitative (Survey)	ExCEEd Teaching Model	One semester	Within one institution	U.S.
89	Vinther and Kolmos (2002)	Description of activities	Model of Faculty Development	Long-term	Cross local institutions	Denmark
90	Quadrato, Welch, and Albert (2005)	Quantitative (Survey)	ISW Model ExCEEd Teaching Model	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
91	Parker et al. (2016)	Quantitative (Survey)	Faculty Survey with Nine Dimensions	Long-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
92	Pavelich and Streveler (2004)	Description of activities	Active Learning Student-centered Learning	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
93	Acosta Peña, Tomás-Folch, and Feixas (2017)	Qualitative (Interview, Observation and Observation)	Dictionary of Teaching Competencies	Long-term	Within one institution	Chile
94	Phillips, Kecskemety, and Delaine (2018)	Mixed method	Three Constructs of the Empowerment	One semester	Within one institution	U.S.
95	Richards, Velasquez, and Payne (2012)	Mixed method	Not specified	Long-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
96	Rummler (2014)	Description of activities	Not specified	One semester	Within one institution	Germany
97	Marquez, Sánchez, and Valera (2013)	Quantitative (Survey)	The Holistic and Constructivist Approach for teaching Competency	Short-term	Within one institution	Spain
98	Schaefer (2013)	Conceptual	COMPetencies in Learning for Engineering and Engineering Technology Educators (COMPLEETE)	Not specified	Within one institution	U.S.
99	Sharma and Pandher (2018)	Quantitative (Survey)	Eight Teachers’ Professional Activities	Not specified	Within one institution	India
100–101	Smirnova and Vatolkina (2018a, 2018b)	Description of activities	Active Learning	Long-term	Cross countries	Russia and Tajikistan
102	Stefl et al. (2017)	Description of activities	Not specified	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.S.
103	Taran et al. (2009)	Description of activities	Not specified	One semester	Cross countries	U.S., Korea, India, Portugal
104	Taylor et al. (2001)	Description of activities	Not specified	Not specified	Within one institution	U.S.
105	Tormey, Hardebolle, and Isaac (2020)	Quantitative (Survey)	Not specified	Short-term	Within one institution	Switzerland
106	Van der Hoeven and Peeters (2013)	Quantitative (Survey)	Problem-/Project-based Learning (PBL)	Long-term	Within one institution	Belgium
107	Van Hemelrijck et al. (2016)	Qualitative (Open-ended survey)	‘Teach As You Preach’ Principle	Long-term	Within one institution	Belgium
108	Verleger and Diefes-Dux (2013)	Quantitative (Survey)	MEA Training Model	One semester	Within one institution	U.S.
109	Verleger and Velasquez (2007)	Quantitative (Survey)	Objectives-Activities-Assessments Model	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
110	Walkington, Christensen, and Kock (2001)	Conceptual	Critical Reflection Theory	Not specified	Cross countries	Australia and Denmark
111	Welch et al. (2001)	Qualitative (Interview)	T4E Model	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
112	Welch and Quadrato (2004)	Quantitative (Survey)	ISW Model	Short-term	Within one institution	U.S.
113	Williams, Turrell, and Wall (2002)	Description of activities	`LET’S TWIST’ Training Model	Short-term	Cross local institutions	U.K.
114	Zavala et al. (2018)	Quantitative (Survey)	Active Learning Walter’s and Kautz’s (2015) Training Framework	One semester	Cross local institutions	Chile
115	Zemliansky (2021)	Qualitative (Document analysis)	Not specified	Short-term	Within one institution	Norway
116	Zhetessova et al. (2019)	Description of activities	Five Functional Components of the Pedagogical System	Not specified	Within one institution	Kazakhstan