Collaborative Research: Quantifying Differences Between Professional Expert Engineers and Engineering Students Designing: Empirical Foundations for Improved Engineering Education

工程设计被认为是工程思维的关键要素，也是工程与科学和数学中其他解决问题方法的区别。工程设计教育的主要目标之一是使学生具备成为专业设计工程师的能力。为了培养学生的这种能力，教育工作者需要对本科生和专业设计工程师的思维过程有详细的了解。本项目将测量和比较工科学生和专业工程师在设计时的设计思维。这项研究使用以前资助的NSF项目中开发的技术和过程来比较学生和专家，这些技术和过程独立于参与者的教育和经验背景。该项目的意义在于能够获得工程设计思维，为工程教育决策奠定基础。理解发展中学习者和专家知识之间的差异对于确定适当的学习经验以减少这种绩效差距至关重要。为了解决这一知识差距，本项目提出了一个控制研究的学生团队从两所大学具有不同的多样性配置文件和工程设计专家团队，以衡量他们各自的设计思维，而设计。它利用协议分析方法，对视频进行转录、分割、编码和分析，以产生基础数据。了解设计教学和成果之间的关系，工程专家的行为还没有完全理解。因此，人们对工程设计教育所预期的长期业绩了解不够。这项研究的结果有可能改变全国的工程教育。了解发展中的学习者在工程和专家工程师的目标性能之间的差异是必不可少的，以确定适当的学习经验，使新手学习者沿着轨道成为专家。然而，专家设计工程师的设计认知是不够的特点。本项目将通过研究工科学生和专业工程师在设计时的认知过程，来衡量和比较他们的设计思维。它将使用以前资助的NSF项目中开发的工具和流程，为比较学生和专家提供统一的基础，而这些基础独立于参与者的教育和经验背景。该项目具有为工程教育决策奠定基础的能力。先前的研究结果表明，工程专业学生和工程专家之间存在差距。为了解决这一知识差距，该项目提出了一个控制研究的队列的学生团队从两所大学具有不同的多样性配置文件和工程设计专家团队，以衡量他们各自的设计思维。它利用协议分析方法，对视频进行转录、分割、编码和分析以产生基础数据，并使用功能-行为-结构本体作为编码方案的基础。为了更好地为学生未来的职业生涯做好准备，将这些内容纳入工程教育是极其重要的。有必要开发具有问题分解和重组功能的补充教材。一个工程教育工作者的讲习班，提出了这些结果可以开发为基础的教育干预措施。

Engineering design is recognized as a critical element of engineering thinking and is what differentiates engineering from other problem solving approaches in science and mathematics. One of the primary goals of engineering design education is to equip students with the capability to become expert design engineers. To develop this capability in students, educators require a detailed knowledge of the thinking process of both undergraduate students and expert design engineers. This project will measure and compare the design thinking of engineering students and expert professional engineers while designing. This research uses techniques and processes developed in previously funded NSF projects to compare students and experts that is independent of the educational and experiential background of the participants. The project is significant in its ability to gain access to engineering design thinking and lay the foundation for engineering education decision-making. Understanding the differences between developing learners and an experts' knowledge is essential to the identification of appropriate learning experiences to reduce this performance gap. To address this gap in knowledge, this project proposes a controlled study of teams of students from two universities with different diversity profiles and of teams of engineering design experts, to measure their respective designing thinking while designing. It utilizes the protocol analysis method, where videos are transcribed, segmented, coded, and analyzed to produce the base data. Understanding the relationship between design teaching and outcomes, and engineering expert behavior is not fully understood. As a consequence there is insufficient knowledge of the long-term performance expected as a result of engineering design education. Results from this research have the potential to transform engineering education nationally.Understanding the differences between developing learners in engineering and an expert engineers' target performance is essential to identify appropriate learning experiences to move novice learners along the trajectory to becoming experts. However, the design cognition of expert design engineers is inadequately characterized. This project will measure and compare the design thinking of engineering students and expert professional engineers through a study of their cognitive processes while designing. It will use tools and processes developed in previously funded NSF projects to provide a uniform basis for comparing students and experts that is independent of the educational and experiential background of the participants. The project has the ability to lay the foundation for engineering education decision-making. The results of prior research showed that there is a gap between engineering students and engineering experts. To address this gap in knowledge, this project proposes a controlled study of cohorts of teams of students from two universities with different diversity profiles and of teams of engineering design experts, to measure their respective design thinking. It utilizes the protocol analysis method, where videos are transcribed, segmented, coded, and analyzed to produce the base data and uses the Function-Behavior-Structure ontology as the basis of the coding scheme. In order to better prepare students for future careers, it is extremely important to incorporate this content into engineering education. There is a need to develop supplemental teaching materials featuring problem decomposition and problem recomposition. A workshop of engineering educators is proposed where these results can be developed as the basis of educational interventions.