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Both the National Academy of Engineering and engineering education researchers underscore a necessity that U.S. engineering graduates be capable of collaborating across national boundaries to successfully "encounter worlds of professional practice that are increasingly global in nature." As a result, this emphasis requires engineering educators and professionals to better understand what constitutes a globally prepared engineer and the types of learning experiences foster preparation of such an engineer. This paper offers an overview of a NSF funded multi-university research program that investigates how globally focused learning experiences within engineering (both co- and extra- curricular) impact students' global preparedness. The research protocol involves three studies and dissemination platform, each of which is in different levels of completion. Results from this study offer the engineering education community a set of impactful and flexible research-based globally focused engineering education pedagogical practices that correlate to learning, diverse student populations, and program types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engineering educators are challenged to produce globally prepared graduates. Yet, sparse research has defined specific traits, characteristics, experiences, or competencies that contribute to this outcome. In this paper, we describe and present results of a research summit that was convened with a group of subject matter experts in engineering and international education to reach consensus on the skills, strategies and characteristics of globally prepared engineering students. This summit was a culminating research process that synthesized results of three rounds of a Delphi study that focused on identifying the traits, experiences, and competencies that defined globally prepared engineering graduates. The summit resulted in the semantic mapping of critical aspects of global preparedness of undergraduate engineering students. The resulting semantic map documents the relationships among engineering global preparedness and three other broad categories, some of which are particular to engineering education and others that may be applied to other higher education contexts concerned with global preparedness. In addition to global preparedness, the remaining three categories are international contextual knowledge, personal and professional qualities, and cross-cultural communication skills and strategies. The results of this research are intended to inform both engineering and international education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]