Collaborative Research: Research: Understanding and Improving Design Activity Engagement in the Engineering Capstone Experience

该项目将致力于改善工程专业学生和专业人员学习设计解决方案的方式，使广泛使用这些解决方案的人受益。工程专业的学生通过一门以项目为基础的强化课程来学习工程设计，这门课程被称为顶峰课程，这一过程对他们成为工程师至关重要。在这些课程中，学生们经常通过在团队中设计项目来模仿行业惯例，这个过程旨在与他们在工作场所可能经历的类似。然而，工程教育和实践方面的研究继续表明，许多设计学习是在学生获得工程学学位后进行的。如果工科学生更专注于他们的顶峰课程，他们是否会更好地在工作场所实践高质量的设计？如何设计顶石课程，以激励学生学习与设计过程有更深层次联系的设计？这个项目将通过对工科学生和专业人士的深入研究和一个持续的计划来解决这些关键问题，以便让工程设计教师为学生进入工作场所做好准备。关于工科学生如何参与顶峰课程以及他们的参与如何受到身份和动机需求的驱动，我们几乎不了解这些细节。本项目的目标是调查土木工程和机械工程专业的学生和实习工程师如何以及为什么从事工程设计活动。这个项目的特点是：1)开发学生和专业人员的设计活动参与和认同动机的模型；2)扩展我们的模型，以考虑到学术和工作环境之间以及跨学科之间的阻力和协同效应、一致性和紧张性；以及3)通过与工程学教师的广泛合作和培训，促进学生在多种学术环境中的整体和真实参与。Capstone的设计体验特别独特，因为显性和隐性的目标都侧重于尽可能地模拟工程设计体验。因此，学生如何以及为什么在Capstone课程中从事工程设计是理解和提高Capstone课程有效性的基础。我们将使用建构主义扎根理论(CGT)在四个重要背景下考察这种现象是如何以及为什么出现的。这项研究的基本原理是，了解不同学科的学生和工程师如何从事设计是加强我们对学术和工作场所环境和结果的参与的理解的关键一步，可以广泛地为加强学生参与的努力提供指导。这个项目的另一个特点是组建了一个参与设计学习学院(EDLI)，我们将在那里招募一个由8-10名顶峰导师组成的跨机构队列，以支持他们的设计教学，并就教育工作者如何应用研究成果发展与背景相关的见解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will focus on improving the ways that engineering students and professionals learn to design solutions that benefit a wide range of people who use these solutions. Engineering students come to learn engineering design through an intensive project-based course known as their capstone course, a process critical to their formation as engineers. In these courses, students often emulate industry practices by designing projects within a team, in a process intended to be similar to what they might experience in the workplace. However, research in engineering education and practice continues to show that much design learning happens after students graduate with their engineering degrees. Might engineering students be better equipped to practice high-quality design in the workplace if they were more engaged in their capstone course? And how might capstone courses be designed in a way that motivates students to learn design with a deeper connection to the process? This project will address these critical questions through an in-depth study of engineering students and professionals and a sustained plan to equip engineering design instructors in preparing students for the workplace.There is little knowledge of the specifics of how engineering students engage in capstone courses and how their engagement is driven by identity and motivation needs. The objective of this project will be to investigate how and why civil and mechanical engineering students and practicing engineers engage with engineering design activity. In particular, this project will be characterized by the following objectives: 1) Develop a model of design activity engagement and identity motives of students and professionals, 2) Expand our model to account for resistance and synergies, alignment and tension between academic and workplace settings and across disciplines, and 3) Advance holistic and authentic engagement of students in multiple academic settings through extensive collaboration with and training of engineering faculty. The capstone design experience is particularly unique because explicit and implicit goals focus on simulating the engineering design experience to the extent possible. How and why students engage in engineering design in capstone courses is therefore foundational to understanding and improving the efficacy of capstone courses. We will use constructivist grounded theory (CGT) to examine the how and why of this phenomenon in four important settings. The rationale for this research is that understanding differentially how students and engineers in different disciplines engage in design is a critical step in enhancing our understanding of engagement in academic and workplace settings and results can broadly inform efforts to enhance student engagement. This project is further characterized by the formation Engaged Design Learning Institute (EDLI), where we will enroll a cross-institutional cohort of 8-10 capstone instructors to support them in their design instruction and to develop contextually relevant insight on how the research findings may be applied by educators.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.