Collaborative Research: Quantifying Differences Between Professional Expert Engineers and Engineering Students Designing: Empirical Foundations for Improved Engineering Education

University Of North Carolina At Charlotte, Charlotte NC

Investigators

Abstract

Engineering design is recognized as a critical element of engineering thinking and is what differentiates engineering from other problem solving approaches in science and mathematics. One of the primary goals of engineering design education is to equip students with the capability to become expert design engineers. To develop this capability in students, educators require a detailed knowledge of the thinking process of both undergraduate students and expert design engineers. This project will measure and compare the design thinking of engineering students and expert professional engineers while designing. This research uses techniques and processes developed in previously funded NSF projects to compare students and experts that is independent of the educational and experiential background of the participants. The project is significant in its ability to gain access to engineering design thinking and lay the foundation for engineering education decision-making. Understanding the differences between developing learners and an experts' knowledge is essential to the identification of appropriate learning experiences to reduce this performance gap. To address this gap in knowledge, this project proposes a controlled study of teams of students from two universities with different diversity profiles and of teams of engineering design experts, to measure their respective designing thinking while designing. It utilizes the protocol analysis method, where videos are transcribed, segmented, coded, and analyzed to produce the base data. Understanding the relationship between design teaching and outcomes, and engineering expert behavior is not fully understood. As a consequence there is insufficient knowledge of the long-term performance expected as a result of engineering design education. Results from this research have the potential to transform engineering education nationally. Understanding the differences between developing learners in engineering and an expert engineers' target performance is essential to identify appropriate learning experiences to move novice learners along the trajectory to becoming experts. However, the design cognition of expert design engineers is inadequately characterized. This project will measure and compare the design thinking of engineering students and expert professional engineers through a study of their cognitive processes while designing. It will use tools and processes developed in previously funded NSF projects to provide a uniform basis for comparing students and experts that is independent of the educational and experiential background of the participants. The project has the ability to lay the foundation for engineering education decision-making. The results of prior research showed that there is a gap between engineering students and engineering experts. To address this gap in knowledge, this project proposes a controlled study of cohorts of teams of students from two universities with different diversity profiles and of teams of engineering design experts, to measure their respective design thinking. It utilizes the protocol analysis method, where videos are transcribed, segmented, coded, and analyzed to produce the base data and uses the Function-Behavior-Structure ontology as the basis of the coding scheme. In order to better prepare students for future careers, it is extremely important to incorporate this content into engineering education. There is a need to develop supplemental teaching materials featuring problem decomposition and problem recomposition. A workshop of engineering educators is proposed where these results can be developed as the basis of educational interventions.