Preparing Engineering Students for the Challenges of Interdisiplinary Design Teams

工程教育项目的目的是进行一项混合方法的研究，以确定导致成功的跨学科合作的因素，并确定如何将这些因素纳入本科工程课程，以更有效地为学生的跨学科工作做好准备。使用并行三角测量设计，PIS将从三个来源收集和综合数据：行业专业人士、大学教师和工程本科生。在此过程中，他们计划解决由美国国家科学基金会资助的工程教育研究讨论会确定的三个主要领域：1)“工程思维，知识和能力”，2)“学习工程”，以及3)“工程评估方法”。并行三角测量设计，允许研究团队比较不同群体（工程师，教师，学生和他们的非工程合作者）的意见和经验，并在减少偏见的同时代表每个群体。至少有一项教育干预将被管理和评估。他们将专注于合作，来自多个学科的参与者不仅从团队合作的成果中受益，而且从过程中受益。在这样的团队中，团队成员以一种超越简单分工的方式一起工作，从其他学科的工作中学习，并产生综合的想法和解决方案。基于不同学科配置的各种模型的可变性是预期的，目标是找到可转移的概念，这些概念有助于跨学科合作的统一理论模型，该模型可以应用于广泛的教育环境。该项目的结果将阐明以下因素：a)态度和元知识，b)征求和交换信息的策略，c)集体决策和解决问题的方法，以及d)外围设备，如企业文化、物理空间和管理风格。这些项目将收集、分析和整合来自实践工程师、工程教师和本科生的定量和定性数据，为成功的跨学科设计团队制定清晰的学习目标和成果。

The purpose engineering education project is to conduct a mixed methods research study to identify factors that lead to successful interdisciplinary collaborations, and to determine how to bring those factors into undergraduate engineering curricula in ways that more effectively prepare students for interdisciplinary work. Using a Concurrent Triangulation Design, the PIS will gather and synthesize data from three sources: industry professionals, university faculty, and engineering undergraduates. In doing so, they plan to address three major areas identified by the NSF-funded Engineering Education Research Colloquies: 1) "Engineering Thinking, Knowledge, and Competencies," 2) "Learning to Engineer," and 3) "Engineering Assessment Methodologies." Concurrent Triangulation Design, allows the research team to compare the opinions and experiences of various groups (engineers, faculty, students and their non-engineering collaborators) and to represent each while reducing bias. At least one educational intervention will be administered and assessed.They will focus on collaborations in which participants from multiple disciplines benefit not only from the products of teamwork, but also from the process. In such teams, team-members work together in a way that moves beyond simple division of labor, learn from working in other disciplines, and generate integrative ideas and solutions. Variability in the kinds of models based on different disciplinary configurations is anticipated, and the goal is to find transferable concepts that contribute to a unified theoretical model of interdisciplinary collaboration that can later be applied to a wide range of educational settings.The results from this project will illuminate factors such as a) attitudes and meta-knowledge, b) strategies for soliciting and exchanging information, c) approaches to collective decision-making and problem solving, and d) peripherals such as corporate cultures, physical space, and management styles. The PIs will collect, analyze and integrate quantitative and qualitative data from practicing engineers, engineering faculty members and undergraduates to develop a clear picture of learning objectives and outcomes for successful interdisciplinary design teaming.