Exploring the Role of Computational Adaptive Expertise in Design and Innovation

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

TThe objective of this engineering education project is to advance both basic and applied understanding of how to prepare engineering graduates to effectively and efficiently contribute to America's leadership in technological innovation. The PIs propose to study the role that computational and analytical abilities play in innovation in the context of a conceptual framework that has recently emerged in the engineering education literature: adaptive expertise. Adaptive expertise is an emerging area of research on learning that has shown promise in providing enhanced understanding of transfer of knowledge issues. It is a critical area of research that directly relates to U.S. global competitiveness through improving understanding of what is required to train innovative and efficient problem solvers who can transcend narrow disciplinary fields. The PIs plan to perform fundamental research with the intent to inform the practice of teaching and learning. They hypothesize that the general model of adaptive expertise can be applied specifically to characterize the attributes of efficiency and innovation in the context of developing CADEX. Therefore, they plan to focus on basic research to understand the nature of CADEX and to define the efficiency and innovation axes in terms of the underlying cognitive or affective attributes of each. This approach allows them to uncover how innovation and efficiency may be conceived more broadly, while at the same time enables us to define terms specifically in the context of CADEX. The advantage of combining fundamental and applied research is that the PIs not only identify cognitive aspects of computational adaptive expertise and potentially effective instructional strategies, they will also verify and test their findings in actual educational settings. The research will benefit society by providing recommendations for instructional and assessment strategies to develop competencies required for technological innovation. These are essential skills in today's competitive economy and thus will enhance the United States' industrial competitiveness by producing graduates poised with cognitive strategies for developing efficient and effective design solutions.