The Assessment of Product Archaeology as a Platform for Contextualizing Engineering Design

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kemper Lewis ◽  
Deborah Moore-Russo ◽  
Phil Cormier ◽  
Andrew Olewnik ◽  
Gül Kremer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
National Network ◽  
Societal Context ◽  
Novel Approaches ◽  
Knowledge And Practice ◽  
Pedagogical Innovations ◽  
Global World ◽  
The Impact

Many engineering departments struggle to meet “the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context” (Outcome h) that is required for ABET. As a result, engineering students receive meaningful contextual experiences in piecemeal fashion and graduate with a lack of concrete competencies that bridge knowledge and practice in the global world in which they will live and work. By considering products as designed artifacts with a history rooted in their development, our product archaeology framework combines concepts from archaeology with advances in cyber-enhanced product dissection to implement pedagogical innovations that address the significant educational gap. In this paper, we focus on assessing elements of a sustainable and scalable foundation that can support novel approaches aimed at educating engineering students to understand the global, economic, environmental, and societal context and impact of engineering solutions. This foundation is being developed across a network of partner institutions. We present recent results from freshman, sophomore, and senior courses at two of the partners in the national network of institutions.

The Impact of Team-Based Product Dissection on Design Novelty

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Toh ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller ◽  
Gül E. Okudan Kremer
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Current Design ◽  
The Impact

Although design novelty is a critical area of research in engineering design, most research in this space has focused on understanding and developing formal idea generation methods instead of focusing on the impact of current design practices. This is problematic because formal techniques are often not adopted in industry due to the burdensome steps often included in these methods, which limit the practicality and adoption of these methods. This study seeks to understand the impact of product dissection, a design method widely utilized in academia and industry, on design novelty in order to produce recommendations for the use or alterations of this method for supporting novelty in design. To investigate the impact of dissection, a study was conducted with 76 engineering students who completed a team-based dissection of an electric toothbrush and then individually generated ideas. The relationships between involvement in the dissection activity, the product dissected, the novelty and quantity of the ideas developed were investigated. The results reveal that team members who were more involved in the dissection activity generated concepts that were more novel than those who did not. In addition, the type of the dissected product also had an influence on design novelty. Finally, a positive correlation between the number of ideas generated and the novelty of the design concepts was identified. The results from this study are used to provide recommendations for leveraging product dissection for enhancing novelty in engineering design education and practice.

scholarly journals TEAM FORMATION IN ENGINEERING DESIGN COURSES

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Galaleldin ◽  
Justine Boudreau ◽  
Hanan Anis
Keyword(s):  
Student Satisfaction ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Project Based Learning ◽  
Team Composition ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Great Opportunity ◽  
Project Outcome ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact

Engineering design courses often include a team-based project. Project-based learning offers a great opportunity for engineering students to learn about teamwork and collaboration. It also gives students a chance to learn about themselves and improve their conflict management skills. Choosing the right team members for a specific project is not trivial, as the choice of the team often affects the project outcome and the students’ experience in the course. Moreover, there is a debate among engineering educators as to whether it is better to force team composition or not. In this paper, we investigate the impact of team composition and formation on project outcomes and student satisfaction in a second-year engineering design course at the University of Ottawa. The course is open to all engineering students and has an accessibility theme. Students work in teams with a client that has a specific accessibility need. Students meet the client three times during the semester and deliver a physical prototype by the end of the semester. For this study, students in the design course were divided into two groups. Students in the first group were allowed to pick their teams, while the instructor created the teams in the second group based on multidisciplinary composition and year of study. Both groups had the same instructor and the same course material, labs, project choices, etc. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a few teams in each group.

Can Design Teams Be Empathically Creative? A Simulation-Based Investigation on the Role of Team Empathy on Concept Generation and Selection

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alsager Alzayed ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller ◽  
Jessica Menold ◽  
Jacquelyn Huff ◽  
Christopher McComb
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Computational Simulation ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
First Year ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Research on empathy has been surging in popularity in the engineering design community since empathy is known to help designers develop a deeper understanding of the users’ needs. Because of this, the design community has been invested in devising and assessing empathic design activities. However, research on empathy has been primarily limited to individuals, meaning we do not know how it impacts team performance, particularly in the concept generation and selection stages of the design process. Specifically, it is unknown how the empathic composition of teams, average (elevation) and standard deviation (diversity) of team members’ empathy, would impact design outcomes in the concept generation and selection stages of the design process. Therefore, the goal of the current study was to investigate the impact of team trait empathy on concept generation and selection in an engineering design student project. This was accomplished through a computational simulation of 13,482 teams of noninteracting brainstorming individuals generated by a statistical bootstrapping technique drawing upon a design repository of 806 ideas generated by first-year engineering students. The main findings from the study indicate that the elevation in team empathy positively impacted simulated teams’ unique idea generation and selection while the diversity in team empathy positively impacted teams’ generation of useful ideas. The results from this study can be used to guide team formation in engineering design.

scholarly journals The Effects of Service-Based Learning on Metacognitive Strategies During an Engineering Design Task

2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gay Lemons ◽  
Adam Carberry ◽  
Christopher Swan ◽  
Linda Jarvin
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Learning Activities ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Design Task ◽  
Service Activities ◽  
The Impact

Service-based learning has become an emerging pedagogical tool for engineering education. Although there is a large body of literature reporting the benefits of service activities, most studies have relied on self-report measures and generalized learning contributions. Our evaluation went beyond self-perceptions by investigating the impact that service-based learning programs had on specific cognitive elements of engineering design. The primary goal of this project was to investigate what effects, if any, service activities had on the engineering design process. Verbal protocols were collected from ten engineering students during an open-ended, model-building design task. The five service students and five non-service students also completed post-task interviews and reflection papers. The students in our sample who had participated in service-based learning activities voiced more metacognitive phrases, demonstrated more accurate task analysis and clearer strategic planning skills, were more skilled at discriminating useful from superfluous information, and had a better understanding of clients’ needs and constraints. From our sample, it appears that participation in service-based learning activities enhances the design process of engineering students.

Knowledge Retention and Scoring Metrics for Functional Modeling in an Engineering Design Context

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Riggs ◽  
Philip Mountain ◽  
Robert L. Nagel ◽  
Matt R. Bohm ◽  
Julie S. Linsey
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Knowledge Retention ◽  
Functional Modeling ◽  
Design Synthesis ◽  
Functional Models ◽  
Data Points ◽  
Design Skills ◽  
Teaching Function ◽  
The Impact

Functional modeling as a design methodology is often covered in engineering design texts as a tool for transforming “customer speak” into “engineering speak.” There is little to no empirical data, though, that clearly demonstrates that learning functional modeling actually improves students’ engineering design skills. The overall objective of this project is to determine the impact of teaching function on engineering students’ design synthesis abilities. This paper focuses on preliminary data collected as a part of the longitudinal study. Students were asked to generate functional models of functionally similar systems at two points during an engineering design course: (1) once as a homework assignment immediately following the introduction of the topic and (2) again as a low stakes in-class activity seven weeks later. This paper will present the comparison of models created at both data points. Student models at each time point are analyzed using a validated 18-question rubric. The results provide promise that, in general, students retain their modeling ability, but there are noted characteristic differences between homework-generated functional models and those generated later in the semester during an in-class activity. These characteristics will be discussed as will potential improvements to the scoring rubric.

Questioning the Impact of Personality on Design Outcomes: Should We Take It Into Account?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gül E. Okudan ◽  
Linda C. Schmidt ◽  
Noe Vargas Hernandez ◽  
Kathryn Jablokow ◽  
Chun-yu Lin
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Personality Factors ◽  
Creative Problem Solving ◽  
Traffic Light ◽  
Personality Dimensions ◽  
Design Task ◽  
Creative Problem ◽  
The Impact

To investigate the impact of personality factors on the novelty and variety of design outcomes, we conducted an experiment with 33 engineering students of various class standings. All students were enrolled in an introductory engineering design class and completed the same design task, improving the functionality of a traffic light while making sure that it runs sustainably. Our results indicate significant impact of two personality dimensions on design outcomes: openness and agreeableness. These results match findings in the literature that show significant impact of certain personality dimensions of individual scientists on creative problem solving outcomes. We argue that creative problem solving in the engineering domain can be different, as it might require a higher level of tactile thinking in comparison to science; thus, investigation of the impact of personality on creative outcomes was necessary. Accordingly, we recommend measuring and using the personality dimensions as co-variates in empirical observations of design outcomes.

How Engineering Design Students’ Creative Preferences and Cognitive Styles Impact Their Concept Generation and Screening

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Heininger ◽  
Hong-En Chen ◽  
Kathryn Jablokow ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Risk Tolerance ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
The Impact

The flow of creative ideas throughout the engineering design process is essential for innovation. However, few studies have examined how individual traits affect problem-solving behaviors in an engineering design setting. Understanding these behaviors will enable us to guide individuals during the idea generation and concept screening phases of the engineering design process and help support the flow of creative ideas through this process. As a first step towards understanding these behaviors, we conducted an exploratory study with 19 undergraduate engineering students to examine the impact of individual traits, using the Preferences for Creativity Scale (PCS) and Kirton’s Adaption-Innovation inventory (KAI), on the creativity of the ideas generated and selected for an engineering design task. The ideas were rated for their creativity, quality, and originality using Amabile’s consensual assessment technique. Our results show that the PCS was able to predict students’ propensity for creative concept screening, accounting for 74% of the variation in the model. Specifically, team centrality and influence and risk tolerance significantly contributed to the model. However, PCS was unable to predict idea generation abilities. On the other hand, cognitive style, as measured by KAI, predicted the generation of creative and original ideas, as well as one’s propensity for quality concept screening, although the effect sizes were small. Our results provide insights into individual factors impacting undergraduate engineering students’ idea generation and selection.

scholarly journals Monitoring Student Engagement in First Year Engineering

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geraldine Van Gyn ◽  
Peter Wild
Keyword(s):  
Student Engagement ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Research Methodology ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
First Year ◽  
Writing Courses ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
The Impact

In a 2006 study to assess student engagement in the first year, engineering students were the least likely to express positive views about that experience and reported low levels of academic engagement. Initiatives to address this situation in engineering were in progress, including the development of two first year courses integrated engineering design with required writing courses. To monitor engagement and satisfaction, and assess the impact of the course interventions, the same research methodology as the 2006 study was used in 2010, 2011, and 2012 following the implementation of these courses. Participants in focus groups discussed questions related to engagement and identified factors that had led to their satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Themes identified for the three different time periods were compared to each other and to those that emerged in the original 2006 study. Significant among the themes was the experience in the design/communications courses. Themes of dissatisfaction and alienation were highly consistent with the 2006 study but became moderated. This process reinforced the need for authentic engineering course experiences in the first year and is consistent with previous research.

scholarly journals Visual Inspection or Product Dissection? The Impact of Designer-Product Interactions on Engineering Design Creativity

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Toh ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Visual Inspection ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Controlled Study ◽  
Creative Thought ◽  
Design Creativity ◽  
Product Interaction ◽  
The Impact

Designers commonly interact with products in the early phases of design in order to understand the solution space and gain inspiration for new designs. Although designer-product interaction methods such as visual inspection and product dissection are recognized as a pivotal component of the engineering design process, little data is available on how these practices affect idea generation or when these activities are most useful for inspiring creative thought. Therefore, the current study was developed to understand the impact of these activities on creative idea generation. During our controlled study, fifty-nine undergraduate engineering students were instructed to either visually inspect or physically dissect an example milk frother and then generate ideas for a new, innovative design. These concepts were then evaluated for their novelty, variety, quality and quantity. Our analysis (ANOVA) revealed that participants who physically dissected the example frother produced ideas that were more novel but of lower quality than those that simply inspected the frother. Our results provide insights on the impact of designer-product interactions on creativity and we use these findings to develop recommendations for the use and alterations of these practices for improving creativity in engineering design.

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