CAREER: Characterizing, Understanding, and Integrating Complex Problem Solving in Engineering Education

职业：描述、理解和整合工程教育中复杂问题的解决

• 批准号: 0846468
• 负责人: Kurtis Paterson
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: James Madison University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-02-15 至 2016-02-29
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0846468&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Characterizing; Understanding; Integrating; Complex

This CAREER project will research how engineering students?s learn complex problem solving. With global competitiveness and the rapid pace of technological change, engineers must learn to adapt to complex and rapidly changing problem solving environments as well as remain effective in innovation. Undergraduate research and industry experiences provide a strong basis for our students to learn these essential, problem-based, and globally competitive skills. Yet, although such experiences offer many benefits and enable engineering students to begin the practice of solving real-world complex problems, there are two main pitfalls: (a) lack of research and empirical studies on students? learning outcomes as a result of participating in these experiences, and (b) the majority of engineering students do not get exposed to these experiences during their undergraduate education (this is particularly true for undergraduate research experiences, which only the best students get selected to participate in). Our overarching goal is to characterize and understand complex problem solving in real-world engineering settings as a means of integrating these essential problem solving skills in engineering education settings. Guided by six research questions, it is anticipated that: (a) classification of real-world research- and industry-based problems will lead to a understanding and characterizing complex problem solving domains and processes, (b) students? learning outcomes (cognitive, affective, social, and professional) will be assessed in order to understand how different problems enable different outcomes and cognitive abilities, (c) innovative instruments and assessment tools, that can be transferred across institutions, programs, departments, and experiences, will be developed, and (d) strategies for implementing complex problem solving in engineering education will be investigated and presented. We will employ a mixed-methods approach to effectively classify undergraduate research and industry problems as well as assess engineering students? learning outcomes (including performance and achievement motivation, self-efficacy, problem solving and critical thinking skills, professional identity, adaptive expertise and cognitive flexibility) during these two highly promoted experiences. Grounded on the results and findings of the research, the well-integrated educational component will involve the development, implementation, and evaluation of instructional material focused on transferring complex problem solving, based on research and industry experiences, in three settings: (1) undergraduate courses within JMU?s engineering program, (2) high school level engineering course for female students, and (3) K-12 education focused on students and teacher educators.

这个职业项目将研究工科学生S是如何学习解决复杂问题的。随着全球竞争力和技术变革的快速步伐，工程师必须学会适应复杂和快速变化的问题解决环境，并保持有效的创新。本科研究和行业经验为我们的学生提供了坚实的基础，让他们学习这些基本的、以问题为基础的、具有全球竞争力的技能。然而，尽管这样的经历提供了许多好处，并使工科学生能够开始实践解决现实世界中的复杂问题，但存在两个主要陷阱：(A)缺乏对学生的研究和实证研究？大多数工科学生在本科教育期间不会接触到这些经验(本科研究经验尤其如此，因为只有最优秀的学生才会被选中参加)。我们的首要目标是描述和理解真实世界工程环境中的复杂问题解决，作为在工程教育环境中整合这些基本问题解决技能的一种手段。在六个研究问题的指导下，预计：(A)对现实世界研究和基于行业的问题的分类将导致对复杂问题解决领域和过程的理解和特征，(B)学生？将评估学习结果(认知、情感、社交和专业)，以了解不同的问题如何使不同的结果和认知能力不同，(C)将开发可跨机构、项目、部门和经验转移的创新工具和评估工具，以及(D)将调查和提出在工程教育中实施复杂问题解决的策略。我们将采用混合方法来有效地对本科生的研究和行业问题进行分类，并评估工科学生？在这两种高度提升的体验中，学习结果(包括表现和成就动机、自我效能、解决问题和批判性思维能力、专业认同感、适应性专长和认知灵活性)。根据研究的结果和发现，整合良好的教育部分将包括基于研究和行业经验的、专注于转移复杂问题解决的教材的开发、实施和评估，在三个环境中：(1)北京交通大学S工程专业的本科课程，(2)面向女学生的高中水平的工程课程，以及(3)以学生和教师教育工作者为重点的K-12教育。