scholarly journals MACRO-COGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF DESIGN SKILLS FOR SUPPORTING ENGINEERING DESIGN EDUCATION

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Li ◽  
G. Gress
Keyword(s):  
Design Education ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Domain Experts ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Simulation Based ◽  
Weather Forecasters ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Design Idea ◽  
Design Skills ◽  
Selection Of

Macro-cognition is a field of study that investigates how domain experts (e.g., firefighters and weather forecasters) make decisions and judgements for their work.  This paper has adapted two models from macro-cognition to better understand design activities. The first one is the Data / Frame model, and it tells how a person’s frame can influence the selection of information in the design process.  The second one is the recognition-primed decision (RPD) model, which shows how a design idea emerges with a person’s recognition and mental simulation.  Based on these models, we further suggest three intervention strategies (i.e., challenge, relate and demonstrate) to support the processes of sensemaking, recognition and mental simulation.  We also suggest two evaluation aspects, i.e., relevance and fluency, to assess design activities.

AN EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING APPROACH FOR DEVELOPING MENTAL MODELS IN ENGINEERING DESIGN EDUCATION

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Li ◽  
C. Chua
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Support Engineering ◽  
Prior Experiences

Mental simulation represents how a person interprets and understands the causal relations associated with the perceived information, and it is considered an important cognitive device to support engineering design activities. Mental models are considered information characterized in a person’s mind to understand the external world. They are important components to support effective mental simulation. This paper begins with a discussion on the experiential learning approach and how it supports learners in developing mental models for design activities. Following that, the paper looks at the four types of mental models: object, making, analysis and project, and illustrates how they capture different aspects and skills of design activities. Finally, the paper proposes an alternative framework, i.e., Spiral Learning Approach, which is an integration of Kolb’s experiential learningcycle and the Imaginative Education (IE) framework. While the Kolb’s cycle informs a pattern to leverage personal experiences to reusable knowledge, the IE’s framework suggests how prior experiences can trigger imagination and advance understandings. A hypothetical design of a snow removal device is used to illustrate the ideas of design-related mental models and the spirallearning approach.

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.

scholarly journals REFLECTING ON THE USE OF DESIGN METHODOLOGY IN ENGINEERING DESIGN EDUCATION

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Li ◽  
G. Gress ◽  
P. Ziadé
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Course Delivery ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Need Support ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Design Ideas ◽  
Context Free ◽  
Capstone Design

In the teaching of engineering design, it may be common to use design methodology (DM), as documented in several textbooks, in the course delivery.  However, considerable drawbacks could be observed in our case when DM is taken as the major guidance for a capstone design course. We argue that DM tends to prescribe some context-free methods and procedures, which cannot be easily applied by students to their capstone design projects. At the same time, we observe that students need support to characterize a design problem, integrate technical knowledge in design activities and verify design ideas. These aspects require analytical and critical thinking, where DM may not be particularly helpful for students. In the five-year journey of deemphasizing DM in a capstone design course, we have explored and examined various pedagogical approaches such as online modules, design labs and peer evaluations.  Without the teaching of DM, the pedagogical strategy needs to be carefully planned to deliver specific learning in engineering design.  

scholarly journals Development of an AI Userbot for Engineering Design Education Using an Intent and Flow Combined Framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (22) ◽  
pp. 7970
Author(s):  
Yu-Hung Chien ◽  
Chun-Kai Yao
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
System Architecture ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Design Practice ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Design Projects ◽  
Virtual Product

As the inclusion of users in the design process receives greater attention, designers need to not only understand users, but also further cooperate with them. Therefore, engineering design education should also follow this trend, in order to enhance students’ ability to communicate and cooperate with users in the design practice. However, it is difficult to find users on teaching sites to cooperate with students because of time and budgetary constraints. With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in recent years, chatbots may be the solution to finding specific users to participate in teaching. This study used Dialogflow and Google Assistant to build a system architecture, and applied methods of persona and semi-structured interviews to develop AI virtual product users. The system has a compound dialog mode (combining intent- and flow-based dialog modes), with which multiple chatbots can cooperate with students in the form of oral dialog. After four college students interacted with AI userbots, it was proven that this system can effectively participate in student design activities in the early stage of design. In the future, more AI userbots could be developed based on this system, according to different engineering design projects for engineering design teaching.

Development of Design Skills Through Employment of Open-Ended Problems

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey R. Brock ◽  
Sridhar S. Condoor ◽  
Christian P. Burger
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Engineering Education ◽  
Real World ◽  
Design Problem ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Solution Strategy ◽  
Inconsistent Information ◽  
Engineering Problems ◽  
Design Skills ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract With the recent increased concern about the design and problem solving needs of U.S. industry, and academia’s inability to address them, there has arisen a desire to incorporate open-ended problems in engineering education. In the initial stages most, if not all, real-world engineering problems are ill-defined, and have several acceptable solutions, i.e. they are open ended. Yet, our students get very little practice in finding solutions for this type of problem. Correcting this weakness in engineering curricula is hampered by misconceptions about, and inexperience with, these types of problems. As a consequence, educators often attempt to modify typical well defined example problems by expanding their scope, but still taking care to insure that the solution domains are closely circumscribed and well defined. The goal of this paper is to illustrate the main features of open-ended problems and their utility in design education. Such problems are characterized by incomplete or inconsistent information, no evident solution strategy, non-unique solutions, and often poorly understood goals. A real-world open ended design problem will be contrasted with its’ typical engineering education counterpart. This paper attempts to provide the necessary insights to aid in the formulation and selection of effective open ended problems for use in engineering education.

Improving Engineering Design Education: From Skills to Educational Objectives

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noe Vargas Hernandez ◽  
Gabriel Davila Rangel
Keyword(s):  
Learning Styles ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Design Engineering ◽  
Educational Objectives ◽  
Educational Design ◽  
Student Profile ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Design Skills ◽  
The Individual

The objective of this paper is to propose an engineering design educational pedagogy on how to improve the engineering design skills. The design engineering activity is a complex mix of skills and knowledge that has been taught over decades by directly delivering to the students the design methodologies developed by design researchers and by exposing the students to open ended projects that can develop their design skills. From this we can conclude that the three main pedagogical components of a successful educational design experience are: the design skills, the design methods and the design projects. However the individual design skills must be properly developed in the student prior to the project experience and since this is generally not the case, makes it an overwhelming challenge for the student. We present an approach to design engineering teaching through four main steps: First, define the desired knowledge and skills to be acquired by the student during the learning process. Second, organize the skills to be acquired in complexity levels. Third, generate educational objectives for each of the skills. Although the scope of this paper stops here, the educational objectives can be transformed in educational tasks (i.e. lectures, problems, exams, etc.) by using educational theories (teaching styles, learning styles, etc.) in such a way that the student will be able to develop those skills. This model could serve initially as a diagnostic tool to characterize the current set of skills of a given design course or program. The model can also be used to implement educational tasks into the classroom and labs depending on the desired student profile.

scholarly journals Using Imagination to Overcome Fear: How Mental Simulation Nudges Consumers’ Purchase Intentions for Upcycled Food

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1130
Author(s):  
Xiaoke Yang ◽  
Yuanhao Huang ◽  
Xiaoying Cai ◽  
Yijing Song ◽  
Hui Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Product Evaluation ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Purchase Intentions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Simulation Based ◽  
Simulation Group ◽  
Future Self

Upcycled food, a new kind of food, provides an effective solution to reduce the food waste from the source on the premise of food security for human beings. However, the commercial success of upcycled food and its contribution to environmental sustainability are determined by consumers’ purchase intentions. In order to overcome consumers’ unfamiliarity with upcycled food and fear of new technology, based on the cue utility theory, we adopted scenario simulation through online questionnaires in three experiments to explore how mental simulation can improve consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intentions for upcycled food. Through ANOVA, the t-test, and the Bootstrap methods, the results showed that, compared with the control group, consumers’ product evaluation and purchase intentions for upcycled food in the mental simulation group significantly increased. Among them, consumers’ inspiration played a mediation role. The consumers’ future self-continuity could moderate the effect of mental simulation on consumers’ purchase intentions for upcycled food. The higher the consumers’ future self-continuity, the stronger the effect of mental simulation. Based on the above results, in the marketing promotion of upcycled food, promotional methods, such as slogans and posters, could be used to stimulate consumers, especially the mental simulation thinking mode of consumer groups with high future self-continuity, thus improving consumers’ purchase intentions for upcycled food.

Training the Participatory Renaissance Man: Past Creative Experiences and Collaborative Design

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Sauder ◽  
Yan Jin
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Protocol Analysis ◽  
Creative Cognition ◽  
Collaborative Environment ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Renaissance Man ◽  
Current Engineering ◽  
And Training

Students are frequently trained in a variety of methodologies to promote their creativity in the collaborative environment. Some of the training and methods work well, while others present challenges. A collaborative stimulation approach is taken to extend creative cognition to collaborative creativity, providing new insights into design methodologies and training. An experiment using retrospective protocol analysis, originally conducted to identify the various types of collaborative stimulation, revealed how diversity of past creative experiences correlates with collaborative stimulation. This finding aligns with previous research. Unfortunately, many current engineering design education programs do not adequately provide opportunities for diverse creative experiences. As this study and other research has found, there is a need to create courses in engineering design programs which encourage participation in diverse creative activities.

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