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

工程师在开发解决当今复杂问题的方案方面发挥着至关重要的作用。真实的世界工程问题本质上是结构不良的、复杂的、由非工程和工程约束定义的，通常包含缺失或冲突的信息，并且没有一个“正确”的解决方案，如通常在工程教室中教授的那样。为了确保工程专业毕业生具有竞争力，并具备应对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关注。这个项目将研究土木工程领域的本科生、教师和专业人员解决结构不良问题的方法。调查将涉及确定工程专业人员和工程专业学生使用的解决问题的方法之间的异同。参与者解决问题的方法及其个人特征（例如，年的经验，人口统计，学习风格，创造力）也将进行研究。从研究结果到教育实践的翻译将导致改善复杂的，结构不良的问题解决在本科工程教育的教学建议。将开发和广泛传播教育资源，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工程专业学生，教师和专业人员之间的问题解决方法的差异，使用混合方法的数据收集和数据分析方法。混合方法是这种研究的理想方法，因为它涉及定量和定性数据源，以提供对工程问题解决的广泛而深入的研究。本研究将招募一组不同的参与者，通过访谈、大声思考和问卷调查来解决结构不良的问题。将分析定量和定性数据，以确定工程专业学生，教师和专业人员解决问题的模式的相似性和差异。将为工程教育工作者开发和传播综合资源。 这些资源将包括一本关于结构不良问题的教学和学习的工程教师指南，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。该项目不仅有可能为未来在工程背景下解决复杂问题领域的研究提供信息，而且还可以将研究结果转化为教育实践和影响，以改善本科课堂上的问题解决。

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.