Collaborative Research: Bridging the Gap Between Academia and Industry in Approaches for Solving Ill-Structured Problems

工程师在解决当今复杂问题的过程中发挥着至关重要的作用。现实世界的工程问题本质上是结构不良、复杂的，由非工程和工程约束定义，经常包含缺失或冲突的信息，并且没有一个“正确”的解决方案，就像工程课堂上通常教授的那样。为了确保工科毕业生具有竞争力，并具备解决工作场所复杂问题所需的技能，需要努力提高本科教育对解决问题的重视。本项目将研究土木工程领域的本科生、教师和专业人员的结构不良的问题解决方法。调查将包括确定工程专业人员和工程学生使用的解决问题方法的异同。参与者解决问题的方法和他们的个人特征（例如，经验年限、人口统计、学习风格、创造力）也将被研究。将研究成果转化为教育实践，将有助于改善本科工程教育中复杂、结构不良的问题解决教学。广泛开发和传播教育资源，使教授和学生都能受益。更具体地说，本研究项目的目标是调查使用混合方法数据收集和数据分析方法的工程学生，教师和专业人员解决问题方法的差异。混合方法的方法对于这样的研究是理想的，因为它涉及定量和定性数据源，以提供工程问题解决的广泛和深入的检查。本研究将招募不同的参与者，通过访谈、集体思考和问卷调查来解决结构不良的问题。将对定量和定性数据进行分析，以确定工程专业学生、教师和专业人员解决问题模式的异同。将为工程教育工作者开发和分发综合资源。这些资源将包括一本指导工程教师如何教授和学习结构不良问题的指南，以及展示可用于工程课程的结构不良问题解决技术的教学模块。该项目不仅有潜力为工程环境中复杂问题解决领域的未来研究提供信息，而且有潜力将研究成果转化为教育实践和影响，以提高本科课堂的问题解决能力。

Engineers play a crucial role in the development of solutions to today's complex problems. Real world engineering problems are inherently ill-structured, complex, defined by both non-engineering and engineering constraints, often contain missing or conflicting information, and do not have one 'correct' solution as typically taught in engineering classrooms. In order to ensure that engineering graduates are competitive and well-prepared with the skills necessary for the complex problems in the workplace, efforts are needed to improve undergraduate education's focus on solving problems. This project will examine the ill-structured problem solving approaches of undergraduate students, faculty, and professionals within civil engineering. The investigation will involve identifying similarities and differences between problem solving approaches used by engineering professionals and engineering students. Participants' approaches to problem solving and their personal characteristics (e.g., years of experience, demographics, learning style, creativity) will also be studied. Translation from research findings to educational practice will result in recommendations on improving the instruction of complex, ill-structured problem solving in undergraduate engineering education. Educational resources will be developed and disseminated widely to benefit both professors and students. More specifically, the goal of this research project is to investigate differences in the problem solving approaches among engineering students, faculty, and professionals using a mixed-methods data collection and data analysis approach. A mixed-methods approach is ideal for such a study as it involves both quantitative and qualitative data sources to offer a broad and deep examination of engineering problem solving. A diverse set of participants will be recruited for this study to solve ill-structured problems using interviews, think-a-louds, and questionnaires. The quantitative and qualitative data will be analyzed to determine similarities and differences in the patterns of problem solving across engineering students, faculty, and professionals. Comprehensive resources will be developed and disseminated for engineering educators. Such resources will include a guidebook for engineering faculty on the teaching and learning of ill-structured problems, as well as instructional modules demonstrating ill-structured problem solving techniques that can be used in engineering courses. This project has the potential to not only inform future research studies in the area of complex problem solving in engineering contexts, but also for research findings to be translated to educational practice and implications to improve problem solving in undergraduate classrooms.