Influence of Different Representation of Requirements on Idea Generation: An Experimental Study

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akash Patel ◽  
Joshua D. Summers ◽  
Sourabh Karmakar

Abstract The objective of this research is to understand how different representations of requirements influence idea generation in terms of quantity, addressment, sketch detail, novelty, and variety of conceptual sketches. Requirements are statements of need, desires, and wishes of the stakeholders that are used by engineers to frame the problem. Essentially, requirements are the raison d’etre for any engineering project. As the requirements document provides constraints and criteria for a design, it defines and determines the success of a project. While there is research studying the effect of requirements on the conceptual sketch, little study has focused one the impact of different requirement representations on solution development. An experimental study was conducted with 52 fourth year mechanical engineering undergraduate students. Two design problems were formulated with three different representations: a problem statement with embedded requirements, a problem statement and a traditional requirement list, and a problem statement with contextualized scrum stories. Each student was provided each design problems with two different representations of requirements. It was found that the use of contextualized scrum story representations significantly affected the conceptual sketch in the novelty of solution fragments and addressment of requirements, while no significant change in variety, sketch detail, and quantity was seen. Also, the contextualized representation positively affected all metrics but the sketch quantity. Finally, it was found that quantity is not directly related to the number of requirements addressed in the sketches.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. p75
Author(s):  
Stuart B. Kamenetsky ◽  
Adam S. Sadowski

The present experimental study examined the impact of language type on perception of disability images with text captions. 204 disability naïve undergraduate students viewed disability images containing one of six disability language captions: disability-first, defiant self-naming, impairment, negative, person-first, and apologetic naming. Participants completed measures of identification, emotion, willingness to help, willingness to include, and perceptions of capabilities and rights. Person-first and apologetic naming did not result in more positive perceptions of disability. Rather, defiant self-naming evoked the most positive emotions and identification, and greater perceived capabilities and willingness to include whereas negative language evoked the most negative perceptions of images. Results suggest that the elimination of negative language and the use of empowering defiant self-naming by people with disabilities, rather than a focus on using person-first and apologetic naming, may be more effective in reducing negative disability stereotypes.


Author(s):  
Michael W. Glier ◽  
Joanna Tsenn ◽  
Julie S. Linsey ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams

Bioinspired design, the practice of looking to nature to find inspiration for engineering design, is becoming an increasingly desired approach to design. It allows designers to tap a wealth of time-tested solutions to difficult problems in a domain rarely considered by designers. Only recently have researchers developed organized, systematic methods for bioinspired design. These methods include BioTRIZ, an extension of functional modeling for bioinspired design, engineering-to-biology keyword translation tools, and specialized design tools like DANE and SAPPHIRE. These organized methods are currently active research efforts. Traditionally, however, bioinspired design has been conducted without the benefit of any organized method. Without the support of formal methods, designers have relied on the “directed method” of bioinspired design. The directed method approach simply directs designers to consider how nature might approach a problem in order to help designers find solutions. This paper presents an experiment to explore the impact upon idea generation of simply contemplating how nature would solve a design problem. This experiment is foundationally important to bioinspired engineering design method research. The results of this experiment serve as a fundamental baseline and benchmark for the comparison of more systematic, and often more involved, bioinspired design methods. A group of 121 novice designers are given one of two design problems and instructed to either generate solutions using the “directed method,” considering how nature would solve the problem, or to generate solutions without being prompted to use any method. Based on the findings presented here, the directed method offers designers no advantage in the average number of non-redundant ideas the designers can produce, the average quality of their solutions, the average solution novelty, or the variety of solutions proposed. Overall, this investigation finds no significant difference in idea generation between the directed method and the control condition. In conclusion, systematic and organized methods for bioinspired design should instead be sought to effectively leverage nature’s design knowledge.


2004 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey J. Spieker ◽  
Verlin B. Hinsz

Research shows that challenging and specific goals in conjunction with high self-efficacy lead to higher levels of task performance. The impact of repeated success and failure on personal goals and self-efficacy was examined. Undergraduate students initially participated in two-idea generation tasks in which they generated different uses for common objects, such as a knife, which provided them with opportunities to either succeed or fail in goal attainment. Participants then set personal goals and judged their self-efficacy for a subsequent idea generation trial. Our results show that participants who experienced repeated successes set higher personal goals than did those with only a single success, while self-efficacy was not significantly influenced by repeated success or failure. These findings suggest that situational and personal factors such as reactions to prior successes and failures may influence personal goals on future tasks, but do not seem to have an influence on self-efficacy.


Author(s):  
Shraddha Joshi ◽  
Joshua D. Summers

This paper presents the findings from an empirical designer study conducted with senior design students to understand the impact of requirement elicitation activity on idea generation. The participants were divided in three groups. The experiment conditions were (1) requirements elicitation (given only problem statement), (2) partial elicitation (given problem and five requirements) and (3) no elicitation (given problem and ten requirements). Participants in the first two conditions were challenged with eliciting requirements first. All participants were also asked to generate solutions. Comparing the requirements addressed in the solutions generated by the participants, it is found that the group that was not primed with the task of eliciting requirements performed better in terms of addressing requirements when compared to other two groups. These findings lead to the inference in conceptual design stage that allowing the students to elicit requirements does not have significant potential benefits while addressing the requirements.


2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Glier ◽  
Joanna Tsenn ◽  
Julie S. Linsey ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams

Bioinspired design, the practice of looking to nature to find inspiration for solutions to engineering problems, is increasingly a desired approach to design. It allows designers to tap a wealth of time-tested solutions to difficult problems in a domain less considered by designers. Only recently have researchers developed organized, systematic methods for bioinspired design. Traditionally, bioinspired design has been conducted without the benefit of any organized method. Designers relied on the informal “directed intuitive approach” of bioinspired design, which simply directs designers to consider how nature might solve a problem. This paper presents an experiment to explore the impact of the directed approach on idea generation. This experiment is foundationally important to bioinspired engineering design method research. The results of this experiment serve as a fundamental baseline and benchmark for the comparison of more systematic, and often more involved, bioinspired design methods. A group of 121 novice designers are given one of two design problems and instructed to either generate solutions using the directed approach or to generate solutions without being prompted in any additional fashion. Based on the findings presented here, the directed approach offers designers no advantage in the average number of nonredundant ideas, quality, novelty, or variety of the solutions produced. In conclusion, systematic and organized methods for bioinspired design should be sought to effectively leverage nature's design knowledge.


Author(s):  
Bryan Levy ◽  
Ethan Hilton ◽  
Megan Tomko ◽  
Julie Linsey

Design problems are used to evaluate students’ abilities, the impact of various teaching approaches and of design methods. Design problems greatly vary in style and subject area in order to accommodate for a wide distribution of disciplines, cultures, and expertise. While design problems are occasionally reused between studies, new design problems are continuously created in order to account for the fact that a design problem cannot be used multiple times on an individual in order to effectively measure one’s abilities to perform design. More specifically, in repeated measures testing, students cannot receive the same design problem multiple times, for this would cause bias; therefore, multiple design problems are needed to allow for repeated measures testing. The nature and structure of these multiple design problems need to be similar or “equivalent” in order to accurately measure students’ abilities to perform in design. In this study, we examine four design problems: peanut shelling, corn husking, coconut harvesting, and a personal alarm clock. We determine whether these problems could be deemed equivalent for the purposes of evaluating student design performance through repeated measures testing. We implemented idea generation sessions using both between-subject and within-subjects approaches. Solutions were evaluated on quantity, quality, novelty, variety, and completeness metrics. The data implies that the Peanut and Corn problems are similar in nature and the Alarm and Coconut problems are also similar in nature; as such, these problem pairings may be used to test differences based on group means.


Author(s):  
Subha Kumpaty ◽  
Mohammad Mahinfalah

In collaboration with a local industry, Rexnord Technologies, mechanical engineering undergraduate students at the Milwaukee School of Engineering have undertaken a series of senior design projects to solve practical problems in thermal engineering. A team of four students are working on Gearbox oil immersion heater control. This team is developing a control scheme to preheat the oil prior to gear movement and that which will ensure that the heater turns off at the correct time so as to maintain the oil temperature in V-series gearboxes. Another team of four students is tackling Gearbox forced convection heat dissipation-modeling and optimization. The beneficial effects of university-industry alliance and the development of well-rounded engineers are discussed along with the solutions for the specific projects. Assessment results highlighting the impact of senior design in the overall undergraduate curriculum are also be presented in this paper. The senior exit surveys also provide the premium value on senior design experience and industry involvement. The goal of this paper is to give the audience a taste of the senior design opportunities undergraduates have at the Milwaukee School of Engineering highlighting the Rexnord Technologies-sponsored projects and the role of industry collaboration.


Author(s):  
Sabine Heuer

Purpose Future speech-language pathologists are often unprepared in their academic training to serve the communicative and cognitive needs of older adults with dementia. While negative attitudes toward older adults are prevalent among undergraduate students, service learning has been shown to positively affect students' attitudes toward older adults. TimeSlips is an evidence-based approach that has been shown to improve health care students' attitudes toward older adults. The purpose of this study is to explore the change in attitudes in speech-language pathology students toward older adults using TimeSlips in service learning. Method Fifty-one students participated in TimeSlips service learning with older adults and completed the Dementia Attitude Scale (DAS) before and after service learning. In addition, students completed a reflection journal. The DAS data were analyzed using nonparametric statistics, and journal entries were analyzed using a qualitative analysis approach. Results The service learners exhibited a significant increase in positive attitude as indexed on the DAS. The reflective journal entries supported the positive change in attitudes. Conclusions A noticeable attitude shift was indexed in reflective journals and on the DAS. TimeSlips is an evidence-based, patient-centered approach well suited to address challenges in the preparation of Communication Sciences and Disorders students to work with the growing population of older adults.


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