Helping Teams Expand the Breadth of Their Solution Space Through Product Dissection: A Simulation Based Investigation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alsager Alzayed ◽  
Christopher McComb ◽  
Samuel T. Hunter ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Computational Simulation ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
First Year ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Simulation Based ◽  
The Impact

Product dissection has been highlighted as an effective means of interacting with example products in order to produce creative outcomes. While product dissection is often conducted as a team in engineering design education as a component of larger engineering design projects, the research on the effectiveness of product dissection activities has been primarily limited to individuals. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate the impact of the type(s) of product dissected in a team environment on the breadth of the design space explored and the underlying influence of educational level on these effects. This was accomplished through a computational simulation of 7,000 nominal brainstorming teams generated by a statistical bootstrapping technique that accounted for all possible team configurations. Specifically, each team was composed of four team members based on a design repository of 463 ideas generated by first-year and senior engineering design students after a product dissection activity. The results of the study highlight that simulated senior engineering design teams explored a larger solution space than simulated first-year teams and that dissecting different types of products allowed for the exploration of a larger solution space for all of the teams. The results also showed that dissecting two analogically far and two simple products was most effective in expanding the solution space for simulated senior teams. The findings presented in this study can lead to a better understanding of how to most effectively deploy product dissection modules in engineering design education in order to maximize the solution space explored.

Expanding the Solution Space in Engineering Design Education: A Simulation-Based Investigation of Product Dissection

2019 ◽  
Vol 141 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alsager Alzayed ◽  
Christopher McComb ◽  
Samuel T. Hunter ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Educational Level ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Computational Simulation ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
First Year ◽  
Creative Design ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Virtual Dissection ◽  
The Impact

Product dissection has been highlighted as an effective means of interacting with example products in order to produce creative outcomes. While product dissection is often conducted as a team in engineering design education, the research on the effectiveness of product dissection activities has been primarily limited to individuals. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the type(s) of product dissected in a team environment on encouraging creative design outcomes (variety, novelty, and quantity) and the underlying influence of educational level and dissection modality on these effects. This was accomplished through a computational simulation of 14,000 teams of noninteracting brainstorming individuals generated by a statistical bootstrapping technique using a design repository of 931 ideas generated by first-year and senior engineering students. The results of the study highlight the importance of educational level, dissection modality, and the number of products dissected on team design outcomes. Specifically, virtual dissection encouraged the exploration of more novel solutions across both educational levels. However, physical dissection encouraged the exploration of a larger variety and quantity of ideas for senior teams while virtual dissection encouraged the same in first-year teams. Finally, dissecting different types of products allowed teams to explore a larger solution space. The findings presented in this study can lead to a better understanding of how to deploy product dissection modules in engineering design education in order to drive creative design outcomes.

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.

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.

The Effects of Gender and Idea Goodness on Ownership Bias in Engineering Design Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 138 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Toh ◽  
Andrew A. Strohmetz ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Concept Selection ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Final Design ◽  
The Impact

Concept selection is a critical stage of the engineering design process because of its potential to influence the direction of the final design. While formalized selection methods have been developed to increase its effectiveness and reduce human decision-making biases, research that understands these biases in more detail can provide a foundation for improving the selection process. One important bias that occurs during this process is ownership bias or an unintentional preference for an individual's own ideas over the ideas of others. However, few studies have explored ownership bias in a design setting and the influence of other factors such as the gender of the designer or the “goodness” of an idea. In order to understand the impact of these factors in engineering design education, a study was conducted with 110 engineering students. The results from this study show that male students tend to show ownership bias during concept selection by selecting more of their own ideas while female students tend to show the opposite bias, the Halo Effect, by selecting more of their team members' concepts. In addition, participants exhibited ownership bias for ideas that were considered good or high quality, but the opposite bias for ideas that were not considered good or high quality. These results add to our understanding of the factors that impact team concept selection and provide empirical evidence of the occurrence of ownership bias and the effects of gender and idea goodness in engineering design education.

Challenges and Strategies in Remote Design Collaboration During Pandemic: A Case Study in Engineering Education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise Belanger ◽  
Caroline Bartels ◽  
Jinjuan She
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
College Education ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Design Collaboration ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Geographically Distributed ◽  
Remote Design ◽  
Challenges And Strategies

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic forced college education to shift from face-to-face to online instruction. This effort is particularly challenging for freshmen and sophomore students, in engineering design projects where collaborations are needed. The study aims to qualitatively understand challenges and possible strategies revealed by students in remote design collaboration through the lens of an undergraduate-level engineering design introduction class. The authors closely observed team members’ struggles and how they handled them through bi-weekly and final reflections in a semester-long project. The challenges and strategies from 11 teams (42 students) were analyzed and implications for future engineering design education were discussed. The findings provide insights to experimentations that aim to establish a successful remote learning environment that reaches core education objectives of engineering design while also helping students adapt to a geographically distributed engineering workforce in future. The study also illustrated the usefulness of reflections as a tool to capture students’ learning dynamics.

scholarly journals How Concept Selection Tools Impact the Development of Creative Ideas in Engineering Design Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Zheng ◽  
Sarah C. Ritter ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Concept Selection ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Tools

Concept selection tools have been heavily integrated into engineering design education in an effort to reduce the risks and uncertainties of early-phase design ideas and aid students in the decision-making process. However, little research has examined the utility of these tools in promoting creative ideas or their impact on student team decision making throughout the conceptual design process. To fill this research gap, the current study was designed to compare the impact of two concept selection tools, the concept selection matrix (CSM) and the tool for assessing semantic creativity (TASC) on the average quality (AQL) and average novelty (ANV) of ideas selected by student teams at several decision points throughout an 8-week project. The results of the study showed that the AQL increased significantly in the detailed design stage, while the ANV did not change. However, this change in idea quality was not significantly impacted by the concept selection tool used, suggesting other factors may impact student decision making and the development of creative ideas. Finally, student teams were found to select ideas ranked highly in concept selection tools only when these ideas met their expectations, indicating that cognitive biases may be significantly impeding decision making.

scholarly journals An Evaluation of Group Work in First-Year Engineering Design Education

2017 ◽  
pp. 145-168
Author(s):  
Stuart Palmer ◽  
Wayne Hall
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Group Work ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Peer Assessment ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Engineering Application ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Engineering Practice ◽  
First Year ◽  
Engineering Design Education

It is argued that ‘design' is an essential characteristic of engineering practice, and hence, an essential theme of engineering education. It is suggested that first-year design courses enhance commencing student motivation and retention, and introduce engineering application content and basic design experience early in the curriculum. The research literature indicates that engineering design practice is a deeply social process, with collaboration and group interactions required at almost every stage. This chapter documents the evaluation of the initial and subsequent second offerings of a first-year engineering design unit at Griffith University in Australia. The unit 1006ENG Design and Professional Skills aims to provide an introduction to engineering design and professional practice through a project-based approach to problem solving. The unit learning design incorporates student group work, and uses self-and-peer-assessment to incorporate aspects of the design process into the unit assessment and to provide a mechanism for individualization of student marks.

My Idea Is Best! Ownership Bias and its Influence on Engineering Concept Selection

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Toh ◽  
Arti H. Patel ◽  
Andrew A. Strohmetz ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Concept Selection ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Final Design ◽  
Process Factors ◽  
The Impact

Concept selection is considered one of the most crucial components of the engineering design process because the direction of the final design is largely determined at this stage. One of the most widely utilized techniques for filtering designs during this process involves informal review meetings where team members identify the designs that most closely satisfy the design goals. While this is often seen as an efficient process, factors such as ownership bias, or an unintentional preference for an individuals’ own ideas, and team member personality attributes may impact an individual’s decision-making process. However, few studies have explored the impact of these factors on concept selection. Therefore, an empirical study was conducted with 37 engineering students in order to investigate the effect of these attributes on the selection or filtering of design concepts in engineering education. The results from this study show that personality impacts the proportion of ideas selected, and that male students tend to select more of their own ideas (ownership bias) than their female counterparts who more often select their team member’s concepts. These results add to our understanding of the factors that impact the team concept selection process and provide empirical evidence of the occurrence of ownership bias in engineering design education.

Promotion of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Engineering Design by Synchronizing Engineering and Business School Courses

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
José E. Lugo ◽  
Mari Luz Zapata-Ramos ◽  
Manuel J. Perez-Vargas
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Design Thinking ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teams ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
University System ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Working Together ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Innovation And Entrepreneurship

There is a need to improve the innovation and entrepreneurship capacity of engineering design students before graduation, as innovation and entrepreneurship are drivers of economic growth. This paper presents the alignment of existing courses within a university system, mainly Design Thinking (Engineering) and Consumer Behavior (Marketing), with the purpose of developing technology-based entrepreneurship efforts that directly impact a society in need of economic development. Students from each course were presented with six current problems being faced by society, for them to work on in groups. The experience of having interdisciplinary teams working together to achieve a common goal is documented. Also, in order to measure the impact of the courses on the students, a survey of innovation self-efficacy was given to the students at the beginning and at the end of each semester. The results and implications for engineering design education are discussed.

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