scholarly journals Experiential Learning vs Systematic Prescriptions in Engineering Design: A Crossroads for Education

Author(s):  
G. R. Gressfc ◽  
S. Li ◽  
R. W. Brennan

The systematic, non-experiential prescriptions of classical design methodology continue to have a strong presence in large segments of design research and education while another segment sees domain experience and consequent intuition and creativity as being key to successful design. In this paper the two approaches are outlined and the empirical research literature in human behaviour is employed to discern discrepancies and potential weaknesses. Results show that gaining experience in a domain intrinsically changes how one designs, which the classical methodology does not account for. For example, only designers with tactile and visual domain experience can abstract functions per the dictates of the classical (non-experiential) methodology, which means that they cannot have used the methodology to learn basic design in the first place – or did so only with great difficulty. This and other conflicts pose problems for the education of engineering design students, and to fathom their extent this paper surveys engineering design textbooks offered in Canada and the U. S.; all of the books are found to embrace the classical methodology. If they are to remain involved in preparing students for entry into industry then some aspects of their contained classical methodology must be supplanted by experiential approaches to design educatio

Author(s):  
G. R. Gress ◽  
S. Li

With their increasing emphasis on the importance of hands-on practice and gaining experience, the fields of engineering-design research and education appear to be entering a human-focused transition other fields like economics and decision making have emerged from in the recent past. In addition to the original, modernism-rooted desire for a rational science of design modelled on the natural sciences, this delay may be due the inherently strong association of engineering with science – i.e., ‘applied science.’ This research investigated whether there may instead be a science to the human involvement in design, of the human behaviours that often appear in actual engineering design practice. It surveyed published empirical studies in psychology, child development and other social and life sciences – as well as those within design research itself. Of particular interest were the designer behaviours and activities which did not follow the prescriptions of – or were prescribed against by – the traditional, rational-design methods: visualization, single-solution conjecturing, and intuition. Results from this survey showed comprehensively that environmental interactions and authentic design experiences activate latent design abilities and coping mechanisms that may be difficult to obtain otherwise. Without such interaction and the gaining of experience there can be no designing, so essentially design is a wholly human phenomenon. Rather than follow the rational-design method and prescribe against these design-enabling behaviours, then, it appears that a better pedagogical approach is to allow them to develop and mature – and let design novices become the experts they were meant to be.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tinghao Guo ◽  
Jiarui Xu ◽  
Yue Sun ◽  
Yilin Dong ◽  
Neal Davis ◽  
...  

In this paper, we present the results of a study of citation and co-authorship networks for articles published at the ASME Design Automation Conference (DAC) during the years 2002–2015. Two topic-modeling methods are presented for studying the DAC literature: A frequency-based model was developed to explore DAC topic distribution and evolution, as well as citation analysis for each core topic. Correlation analysis and association-rule mining were used to discover relationships between topics. A new unsupervised learning algorithm, propagation mergence (PM), was created to address identified shortcomings of existing methods and applied to study the existing DAC citation network. Influential articles and important article clusters were identified and effective visualizations created. We also investigated the DAC co-authorship network by identifying key authors and showing that the network structure exhibits small-world-network properties. The resulting insights, obtained by the both the proposed and existing methods, may be beneficial to the engineering design research community, especially with respect to determining future research directions and possible actions for improvement. The data set used here is limited; expanding to include additional relevant conference proceedings and journal articles in the future would offer a more complete understanding of the engineering design research literature.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Janet K. Allen ◽  
Shapour Azarm ◽  
Balakumar Balachandran

Abstract Professor Linda Schmidt, a pioneering leader in engineering design research and education, passed away on March 12, 2021. She was born in Blue Island, Illinois on November 27, 1958, and received her B.S. degree (1989) and M.S. degree (1991) in Industrial Engineering from Iowa State University before going on to complete her Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1995. She was one of Professor Jonathan Cagan's early Ph.D. students. Her dissertation entitled “An Implementation Using Grammars of an Abstraction-Based Model of Mechanical Design for Design Optimization and Design Space Characterization” was foundational to her early investigations.


Author(s):  
Tinghao Guo ◽  
Jiarui Xu ◽  
Yue Sun ◽  
Yilin Dong ◽  
Neal E. Davis ◽  
...  

In this paper we present a study of citation and co-authorship networks for articles from the ASME Design Automation Conference (DAC) during the years 2002–2015. We identify key authors, show that the co-authorship network exhibits the small world network property, and reveal other insights from network structure. Results from two topic modeling methods are presented. A frequency-based model was developed to explore DAC topic distribution and evolution. Citation analysis was also conducted for each core topic. A correlation matrix and association rule mining were used to discover topic relations and to gain insights for research gaps and recommendations. A recently developed unsupervised learning algorithm, propagation mergence (PM), was applied to the DAC citation network. Influential papers and major clusters were identified and visualizations are presented. The resulting insights may be beneficial to the engineering design research community, especially with respect to determining future directions and possible actions for improvement. The data set used here is limited. Expanding to include additional relevant conference proceedings and journal articles in the future would offer a more complete understanding of the engineering design research literature.


Author(s):  
G. R. Gress ◽  
S. Li

With their increasing emphasis on the importance of hands-on practice and gaining experience, the fields of engineering-design research and education appear to be entering a human-focused transition other fields like economics and decision making have emerged from in the recent past. In addition to the original, modernism-rooted desire for a rational science of design modelled on the natural sciences, this delay may be due the inherently strong association of engineering with science – i.e., ‘applied science.’ This research investigated whether there may instead be a science to the human involvement in design, of the human behaviours that often appear in actual engineering design practice. It surveyed published empirical studies in psychology, child development and other social and life sciences – as well as those within design research itself. Of particular interest were the designer behaviours and activities which did not follow the prescriptions of – or were prescribed against by – the traditional, rational-design methods: visualization, single-solution conjecturing, and intuition. Results from this survey showed comprehensively that environmental interactions and authentic design experiences activate latent design abilities and coping mechanisms that may be difficult to obtain otherwise. Without such interaction and the gaining of experience there can be no designing, so essentially design is a wholly human phenomenon. Rather than follow the rational-design method and prescribe against these design-enabling behaviours, then, it appears that a better pedagogical approach is to allow them to develop and mature – and let design novices become the experts they were meant to be.


2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Maral Babapour Chafi

Designers engage in various activities, dealing with different materials and media to externalise and represent their form ideas. This paper presents a review of design research literature regarding externalisation activities in design process: sketching, building physical models and digital modelling. The aim has been to review research on the roles of media and representations in design processes, and highlight knowledge gaps and questions for future research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-8
Author(s):  
Ian Cummins

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the recent National Appropriate Adult Network (NAAN) report on the role of the appropriate adult. Design/methodology/approach This paper is based on the NAAN report and a review of relevant policy and research literature. Findings There to Help 2 highlights that there are still significant gaps in the provision of appropriate adult schemes across England and Wales. These gaps potentially place vulnerable adults at increased risk. Originality/value This paper is a review of recent research.


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