Investigation of Context Across Engineering Domains: Bridging the Eye-Mind Divide

本研究将确定上下文的类型，包括图片，草图和图表，这是利用在当代交通和水资源工程实践和本科工程课程。 该项目将调查已识别的工程问题背景对学生和实习工程师解决这些问题的表现的影响，以及他们在解决过程中注意什么。当问题得到解决时，参与者将佩戴一个移动的眼动仪，并回答有关他们正在做什么的问题。这两组数据将被分析，以确定工程问题的不同元素对解决方案的重要性。有了这些知识，工程教育工作者和研究人员将能够开发更好的材料，最大限度地提高工程专业学生的学习，更好地让他们了解在真实的工程实践中使用什么样的背景。 发展的情况下或真实的工程知识和思维方式在工程专业的学生已被确定为国家研究理事会的优先事项，与理论上成立的期望，它将导致学生谁是更有能力的创新工程设计。在这个方向上的进展需要基础研究如何真实的工程实践的背景下影响新手和专家的认知和学习，再加上研究为基础的课程设计。本研究的具体目标是综合新手和专家工程师的运输和水利工程概念的心理表征，采用创新的研究方法，结合（1）识别工程和学术背景与实践工程师和工程教师，（2）真实的时间思考大声访谈，（3）眼动追踪，（4）反思临床访谈。这些知识将进一步我们的工程问题的关键要素的理解，并被用来开发新的做法，工程教育研究和周到的纳入新开发的工程课程的背景下进行。

This research will identify the types of contexts, including pictures, sketches and diagrams, which are utilized in contemporary transportation and water resources engineering practice and in undergraduate engineering curricula. The project will investigate the influence of the identified engineering problem contexts on students' and practicing engineers' performance in solving these problems and what they pay attention to during the solution process. While the problems are being solved, participants will be wearing a mobile eye-tracker and responding to questions about what they are doing. These two sets of data will be analyzed to determine how important different elements of the engineering problems are to arriving at solutions. With this knowledge engineering educators and researchers will be able to develop better materials that maximize the learning of engineering students, better preparing them to understand what kinds of contexts are used in authentic engineering practice. Developing situated or authentic engineering knowledge and ways of thinking in engineering students has been identified as a priority by the National Research Council, with the theoretically founded expectation that it will result in students who are more capable of innovative engineering design. Progress in this direction requires fundamental research on how contexts authentic to engineering practice influence cognition and learning in novices and experts, coupled with the design of research-based curriculum. The specific goals of this research are to synthesize novice and expert engineers' mental representations of transportation and hydraulics engineering concepts using an innovative research methodology combining (1) identification of engineering and academic contexts with practicing engineers and engineering faculty, (2) real time think-aloud interviews, (3) eye-tracking, and (4) reflective clinical interviews. This knowledge will further our understanding of critical elements of engineering problems and be used to develop new practices for the conduct of engineering education research and the thoughtful inclusion of context in newly developed engineering curricula.