Preparing Engineering Students for the Challenges of Interdisiplinary Design Teams

让工科学生做好应对跨学科设计团队挑战的准备

• 批准号: 0648439
• 负责人: Lisa McNair
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-03-01 至 2011-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0648439&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Preparing; Engineering; Students; Challenges; Interdisiplinary

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.

工程教育项目的目的是进行混合方法研究，以确定导致成功跨学科合作的因素，并确定如何将这些因素引入本科工程课程，从而更有效地为学生做好跨学科工作的准备。使用并行三角测量设计，PIS 将收集并综合来自三个来源的数据：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 NSF 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）“学习工程师”和 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、学生及其非工程合作者）的意见和经验，并代表每个群体，同时减少偏见。将管理和评估至少一项教育干预措施。他们将重点关注合作，使来自多个学科的参与者不仅从团队合作的产品中受益，而且从整个过程中受益。在这样的团队中，团队成员的合作方式超越了简单的分工，从其他学科的工作中学习，并产生综合的想法和解决方案。预计基于不同学科配置的模型种类会存在差异，目标是找到可转移的概念，有助于形成跨学科合作的统一理论模型，随后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）集体决策和问题的方法 d) 外围因素，例如企业文化、物理空间和管理风格。 PI 将收集、分析和整合来自执业工程师、工程教员和本科生的定量和定性数据，以便为成功的跨学科设计团队制定清晰的学习目标和成果。