Engineering Design as Research

2012 ◽  
pp. 389-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy L.J. Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Design Work ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
Is Research ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Actual Design ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
The Impact

Research is defined as an activity that creates new knowledge. This is often misunderstood in the engineering community as necessarily requiring a scientific contribution that advances the theory of some matter related to engineering materials or processes. Consequently, typical engineering research projects investigate physical phenomena thought likely to be interesting in potential applications or to describe the characteristics of processes used in engineering work. The results of such projects provide a fragmented, abstracted view of the phenomena investigated, which is difficult to use in engineering decision making related to contextualised situations. This chapter shows how the actual design of engineered artefacts is research because it provides knowledge of the impact of the integration of various elements of existing knowledge, which demonstrates the properties of the designs achieved through the design work and leads to discovery of solutions to the various challenges of integration discovered through the project which attempts to achieve the integration.

Engineering Design as Research

2012 ◽  
pp. 1766-1779
Author(s):  
Timothy L.J. Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Research Projects ◽  
Design Work ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
Is Research ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Actual Design ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
The Impact

Research is defined as an activity that creates new knowledge. This is often misunderstood in the engineering community as necessarily requiring a scientific contribution that advances the theory of some matter related to engineering materials or processes. Consequently, typical engineering research projects investigate physical phenomena thought likely to be interesting in potential applications or to describe the characteristics of processes used in engineering work. The results of such projects provide a fragmented, abstracted view of the phenomena investigated, which is difficult to use in engineering decision making related to contextualised situations. This chapter shows how the actual design of engineered artefacts is research because it provides knowledge of the impact of the integration of various elements of existing knowledge, which demonstrates the properties of the designs achieved through the design work and leads to discovery of solutions to the various challenges of integration discovered through the project which attempts to achieve the integration.

scholarly journals Scientific Landscape of Citizen Science Publications: Dynamics, Content and Presence in Social Media

Publications ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Núria Bautista-Puig ◽  
Daniela De Filippo ◽  
Elba Mauleón ◽  
Elías Sanz-Casado
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Citizen Science ◽  
Web Of Science ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Scientific Output ◽  
Scientific Culture ◽  
Triple Interaction ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
The Impact

Citizen science (CS) aims primarily to create a new scientific culture able to improve upon the triple interaction between science, society, and policy in the dual pursuit of more democratic research and decision-making informed by sound evidence. It is both an aim and an enabler of open science (OS), to which it contributes by involving citizens in research and encouraging participation in the generation of new knowledge. This study analyses scientific output on CS using bibliometric techniques and Web of Science (WoS) data. Co-occurrence maps are formulated to define subject clusters as background for an analysis of the impact of each on social media. Four clusters are identified: HEALTH, BIO, GEO and PUBLIC. The profiles for the four clusters are observed to be fairly similar, although BIO and HEALTH are mentioned more frequently in blogposts and tweets and BIO and PUBLIC in Facebook and newsfeeds. The findings also show that output in the area has grown since 2010, with a larger proportion of papers (66%) mentioned in social media than reported in other studies. The percentage of open access documents (30.7%) is likewise higher than the overall mean for all areas.

scholarly journals An empirical evaluation of the use of video films in training: A behaviouristic analysis

1987 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-167
Author(s):  
C. Viedge ◽  
P. A. Taffinder
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Transfer Of Training ◽  
Empirical Evaluation ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
Research Production ◽  
Training Film ◽  
Business Game ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Video Films

Considerable organizational resources are expended annually on training, yet little empirical research is undertaken to investigate the problem of transfer of training to the workplace. Video films are an integral part of many training courses and it is critical to evaluate the efficacy of such films in developing the intended skills. Within the operant behaviouristic perspective, an ABAB reversal experiment was conducted during four business game periods of a training course. The experimental objective was to assess the impact of the principles presented in a training film on the decision-making behaviour of six managers from an engineering research/production facility. A cue-board summarizing the decision-making principles presented in the film was unobtrusively introduced during the two 'B' phases of the experiment. Frequencies of the target behaviour were recorded by two independent raters across all consecutive 'A' and 'B' experimental phases. No functional relationship was found between the use of the decision-making principles and the introduction of the cue-board. In other words, despite the use of a cue-board to prompt decision-making behaviour, no transfer of training from the video-film to the analogue working environment of the business game was observed. Some implications of these results for employing video films in training are discussed.

Effects of Deliberate Practice on Crisis Decision Performance

2003 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Earl H. McKinney ◽  
Kevin J. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Deliberate Practice ◽  
Action Selection ◽  
Decision Performance ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Crisis Scenarios ◽  
Two Phases ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Career Crisis

This study examined the impact of deliberate practice on pilot decision making in once-in-a-career crisis decision scenarios. First we explored the impact of deliberate practice on pilot decision-making performance for crisis flying scenarios that had been practiced in their entirety. Then we looked at the impact of deliberate practice in which one aspect of the crisis scenario - the particular malfunction - was unpracticed. We analyzed pilot decision-making performance in response to 160 airborne mechanical malfunctions. We initially found that deliberate practice significantly improves decision-making performance for wholly practiced crises but does not improve decision-making performance when the specific malfunction has not been practiced. We then split decision making for each crisis into two phases: assessment and action selection. For wholly practiced crisis scenarios, additional deliberate practice positively impacts each decision-making phase. However, for part-practiced scenarios, deliberate practice appears to differentially affect phase of error. Specifically, pilots with more deliberate practice erred in action selection, whereas less-practiced pilots erred in assessment. Actual or potential applications of this research include training proscriptions for crisis decision making.

Quota Women Are Threatening to Men

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 107-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klea Faniko ◽  
Till Burckhardt ◽  
Oriane Sarrasin ◽  
Fabio Lorenzi-Cioldi ◽  
Siri Øyslebø Sørensen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Performance ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Preferential Treatment ◽  
Public Sector Employees ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Women In Decision Making ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Two studies carried out among Albanian public-sector employees examined the impact of different types of affirmative action policies (AAPs) on (counter)stereotypical perceptions of women in decision-making positions. Study 1 (N = 178) revealed that participants – especially women – perceived women in decision-making positions as more masculine (i.e., agentic) than feminine (i.e., communal). Study 2 (N = 239) showed that different types of AA had different effects on the attribution of gender stereotypes to AAP beneficiaries: Women benefiting from a quota policy were perceived as being more communal than agentic, while those benefiting from weak preferential treatment were perceived as being more agentic than communal. Furthermore, we examined how the belief that AAPs threaten men’s access to decision-making positions influenced the attribution of these traits to AAP beneficiaries. The results showed that men who reported high levels of perceived threat, as compared to men who reported low levels of perceived threat, attributed more communal than agentic traits to the beneficiaries of quotas. These findings suggest that AAPs may have created a backlash against its beneficiaries by emphasizing gender-stereotypical or counterstereotypical traits. Thus, the framing of AAPs, for instance, as a matter of enhancing organizational performance, in the process of policy making and implementation, may be a crucial tool to countering potential backlash.

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