EAGER: Cognitive Ethnographies of Engineering Design

这个早期概念探索性研究（EAGER）项目的目标是了解当代工程工作场所的设计实践，并了解设计过程是如何组织的。一个相关的目的是了解专业实践如何与大学工程课程中名义上类似的实践联系起来，以及工作和学校之间的连续性和不连续性如何影响设计工程课程的努力。这些目标是通过对专业工程师和工程学生的设计实践进行探索性、比较性、基于实地的人种学研究来实现的。研究人员正在观察工作场所的实习工程师——他们做什么，他们和谁交流，他们说什么，以及他们是如何组织的。研究的结果将是对这些观察结果的记录和分析。这项研究的主要好处有两个方面：首先，当前的工程设计理论可以通过真实工程师每天所做的实际数据来检验其有效性。其次，工程师教育可以通过让学生更直接地为他们在工作场所所做的事情做好准备来加强。

The objective of this EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project is to to understand the design practices of contemporary engineering workplace and to understand how the design process is organized. A related purpose is to understand how professional practices relate to nominally similar practices in university engineering classes, and how any continuities and discontinuities between work and school might inform efforts to design engineering classes. These objectives are being accomplished through an exploratory, comparative, field-based ethnographic study of the design practices of professional engineers versus engineering students. Researchers are observing practicing engineers in the workplace - what they do, who they communicate with, what they say, and how they are organized. The results of the research will be the documentation and analysis of these observations.The primary benefits of this research come in two areas: First, current theories of engineering design can be tested for validity against real data on what real engineers do every day. Second, education of engineers can be enhanced by preparing students more directly for what they will be doing in the workplace.