Understanding the Professional Formation of Engineers through the Lens of Design Thinking: Unpacking the Problem of Diversity and Inclusion

在工程师的专业形成过程中，已经发现了三个广泛的问题：1)学生在大学里学到的东西和毕业后的实践之间的差距；2)认为工程仅仅是技术、数学和理论导向的局限观念；3)在许多工程项目中缺乏多样性（代表广泛的人）和包容性（结合不同的观点、价值观、思维方式和参与工程）。这三个问题通常被视为单独的问题，需要各自干预。虽然这些干预措施可能导致朝着理想的方向发生一些变化，但它们无法解决维持这些问题的假设和价值观。这些问题阻碍了工程专业尽可能地为社会做出最积极的贡献，他们没有给所有学生留下多少空间来训练他们利用更广泛的技能，为人民、社会和环境带来更明确的利益。尽管一些工程学科和课程改革发生了变化，但在专业形成中整合包容性和多样性所需要的深刻变革仍然没有实现。部分原因是，这些问题是高度复杂的、相互关联的、动态的、反身性的，不能用简单的解决方案来解决。它们需要设计思维，即激发涉众持续原型设计的心态和过程，以系统地解决特定环境中嵌入的问题。这个项目运用设计思维来研究专业形成，并寻找可持续的解决方案，以解决几十年来困扰工程教育工作者的包容性和多样性问题。在这个项目中建立的设计思维方法可以应用于工程以及一般高等教育面临的其他问题。尽管一些工程学科的概况和工程教育的课程改革发生了变化，但仍然没有将包容性过程和思维融入专业形成所需的深刻变革。部分原因是，多样性和包容性仍被视为有待解决的“问题”。相反，我们需要的是一种理解和探索多样性和包容性的方法，这种方法与工程的认识论（学生需要知道什么）和本体论（成为一名工程师意味着什么）基础相关。本研究利用设计思维方法和研究活动来探索工程专业形成、多样性和包容性的基本理解，同时解决三个项目目标：1)更好地为当今的劳动力培养工程师；2)拓宽对工程实践的社会和技术理解；3)创建和维持更加多样化和包容性的工程项目。该项目围绕设计过程的三个阶段进行组织：灵感、构思和实施。嵌入在设计过程中的是一个纵向的、多阶段的、混合方法的研究。该项目涉及普渡大学电气与计算机工程学院和生物医学工程学院的主要利益相关者（学生、教师、员工和管理人员）参与研究和设计过程。本研究解决了工程和高等教育中基本和持续存在的问题，并开创了一种分析过程，其他机构可能会采用这种分析过程来深入研究专业形成中的多样性和包容性问题。通过使用设计思维更全面地分析挑战，这种方法应该确定学科和专业中嵌入的潜在范例，这些范例使这些问题变得棘手。

Three broad issues have been identified in the professional formation of engineers: 1) the gap between what students learn in universities and what they practice upon graduation; 2) the limiting perception that engineering is solely technical, math, and theory oriented; and 3) the lack of diversity (representation of a wide range of people) and lack of inclusion (incorporation of different perspectives, values, and ways of thinking and being in engineering) in many engineering programs. These three issues typically are treated as separate problems that require their own interventions. Although the interventions may result in some change in desirable directions, they cannot address the assumptions and values that sustain the problems. These issues prevent the profession of engineering from having the most positive contributions to society as possible and they leave little space for training all students to utilize a broader set of skills and work toward a clearer benefit to peoples, society, and the environment. Despite changes in some engineering disciplines and curricular reforms, there still has not been the deep transformation needed to integrate inclusion and diversity in professional formation. The reason is, in part, that these issues are highly complex, interconnected, dynamic, reflexive and not amenable to simple solutions. They require design thinking, namely, mindsets and processes that inspire continuous prototyping with stakeholders to systematically address issues embedded in particular contexts. This project applies design thinking for studying professional formation and for finding sustainable solutions to the inclusion and diversity issues that have stumped engineering educators for decades. The design thinking methodology established in this project can then be applied to other problems facing engineering as well as facing higher education in general.Despite change in some engineering discipline profiles and curricular reforms for engineering education, there still has not been the deep transformation needed to integrate inclusionary processes and thinking in professional formation. In part, the reason is that diversity and inclusion are still framed as "problems" to be solved. What is needed instead is an approach that understands and explores diversity and inclusion as interrelated with the epistemological (what students need to know) and ontological (what it means to be an engineer) underpinnings of engineering. This study utilizes a design thinking approach and research activities to explore foundational understandings of professional formation, diversity, and inclusion in engineering while addressing the three project objectives: 1) Better prepare engineers for today's workforce; 2) Broaden understandings of engineering practice as both social and technical; and 3) Create and sustain more diverse and inclusionary engineering programs. The project is organized around the three phases of the design process: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. Embedded within the design process is a longitudinal, multiphase, mixed-methods research study. The project involves key stakeholders (students, faculty, staff, and administrators) from the schools of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University in the research and design processes. This study addresses essential and persistent issues in engineering and higher education, and pioneers an analysis process that other institutions might adopt to delve into their problems of diversity and inclusion in professional formation. By analyzing challenges more holistically using design thinking, this approach should identify the underlying paradigms embedded in the disciplines and professions that make these issues intractable.