The relationship of industry experience and research ability of teachers in automotive engineering

The aim of the present research is to investigate whether industry experience contribute to research ability in teachers of Automotive Engineering, along side of discovering other possible factors that may affect research ability. Questionnaires that went through expert panel were conducted to 128 Automotive Engineering teachers across 26 colleges and universities of Taiwan. The main statistical methods were the descriptive, ANOVA and 9C analyses were used to analyze the data. The major findings were 1. All (100%) of the assistant professors sampled agreed that improving research ability was their main reason to carry out industrial learning, as well as 73.7% of the associate professors, 53.3% of the professors and 25% of the lecturers. In terms of Education level, 70.3% of teachers with PhD believed improving research were their main reason to carry out industrial learning, which is significantly greater than the 22.2% of teachers with Masters or less. 2. External reasons to carry out industrial learning also showed significant difference in "Education level". 3. "Colleague" has minimal effect on carrying out industrial learning (4.3%), regardless of the number of teaching years. 4. In gaining industrial experience, agreement was found between desired approach and currently executing approach. The results provided suggestions in future development of industrial learning for teachers in Automotive Engineering, and serve as a reference for administrators in related education institutions.