Research Initiation: Enhancement of transfer of design thinking in undergraduate Bioengineering students

工程教育的一个主要目标是训练工程学生用设计思维策略来处理复杂的项目。这些包括系统地分析手头的问题以及客户和社区的需求，产生各种创造性的可能解决方案，应用合理的过程来选择最佳方案，设计解决方案的原型，测试原型并改进它直到它是最佳的。不幸的是，尽管在本科课程中教授了这些设计思维策略，但许多工程专业的学生并没有将它们转移到他们的毕业项目和工程职业中。相反，他们依赖于简单的策略，比如固定在单一的解决方案上，使用非系统的试错方法。该项目建立在一个理论的基础上，该理论解释了为什么人们不能在不同的环境中转移解决问题的策略。我们计划重新设计生物工程课程，以增加学生将设计思维策略从课程转移到他们的顶点项目和他们的职业生涯的可能性。该项目的结果将是一个框架，其他工程教育工作者可以使用它来重新设计他们的课程，以便他们的学生也更有可能将设计思维策略从当前课程转移到他们的工程专业角色中。该项目将培养一名生物工程教授和一名工程博士从事工程教育研究，从而增加研究工程学生发展的研究人员群体。虽然工程教育的中心目标是培养学生的设计思维，以创造性地解决现实世界的问题，但数十年的研究表明，学生通常无法将他们在本科课程中学到的设计思维策略转移到他们的毕业项目和工程工作中。指导本课题的研究问题是：工程教师如何加强生物工程本科学生设计思维策略的转移？本项目建议以角色认同、动机、学习和迁移等当代理论为基础，建立一个理论框架和基于理论的教学原则，以一种支持设计思维策略在不同背景和任务之间迁移的方式教授设计思维策略。该项目将涉及一名生物工程教授、一名工程博士生和一名教育心理学教授之间的合作，他们将把角色认同的动态系统模型（DSMRI）应用于工程学生跨情境角色认同的设计思维策略转移的概念框架，并制定教学设计原则，以促进工程本科课程中的这种转移。然后，理论框架和教学设计原则将指导为期两年的基于设计的研究，该研究将涉及设计思维策略的转移促进活动设计纳入生物设计本科课程。在第一年，该项目将侧重于实施活动，并调查学生在这些活动中的参与度，以及他们将设计思维策略转移到他们的顶点项目中的程度和类型。在第二年，我们的工作重点是利用研究结果重新制定概念框架和教学原则，重新设计和实施活动，并调查学生的参与和转移。这个项目的成果将包括设计思维策略转移的概念框架，以及设计思维策略转移的教学原则。研究人员将在工程教育研究会议、同行评议期刊和教育工作者研讨会上传播这些产品。研究结果也将为未来美国国家科学基金会的工程教育建议提供依据。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A major goal of engineering education is to train engineering students to approach complex projects with design thinking strategies. These include systematically analyzing the problem at hand as well as the needs of the clients and of the community, generating a variety of creative possible solutions, applying a rational process to select the best option for the circumstances, designing a prototype of the solution, and testing the prototype and improving it until it is optimal. Unfortunately, despite being taught these design thinking strategies in undergraduate courses, many engineering students do not transfer them to their capstone projects and to their engineering careers. Instead, they fall back on simple strategies such as getting fixed on single solutions and using unsystematic trial-and-error methods. The project builds on a theory that explains why people fail to transfer problem-solving strategies across contexts. We plan to redesign a bioengineering course in a way that will increase the likelihood that the students will transfer the design thinking strategies from the course to their capstone project and into their careers. The outcome of the project will be a framework that other engineering educators can use to redesign their courses so that their students are also more likely to transfer design thinking strategies beyond the current course into their engineering professional roles. This project will increase the community of researchers who are studying engineering students’ development by training a bioengineering professor and an engineering doctoral student in engineering educational research.Whereas a central goal in engineering education is developing students’ design thinking for creative real-world problem solving, decades of research have demonstrated that students commonly fail to transfer design thinking strategies they learned in undergraduate courses to their capstone projects and to their engineering jobs. The research question guiding this project is: how can engineering instructors enhance transfer of design thinking strategies among bioengineering undergraduate students? This project proposes to build on contemporary theories of role identity, motivation, learning, and transfer to develop a theoretical framework and theory-informed pedagogical principles to teach design thinking strategies in a manner that supports their transfer across contexts and tasks. The project will involve a collaboration between a bioengineering professor, an engineering doctoral student, and an educational psychology professor who will adapt the Dynamic Systems Model of Role Identity (DSMRI) to a conceptual framework of engineering students’ transfer of design thinking strategies across context-based role-identities, and the formulation of pedagogical design principles to promote such transfer in engineering undergraduate courses. The theoretical framework and pedagogical design principles will then guide a two-year design-based research that will involve the design of transfer-promoting activities focused on design thinking strategies into a biodesign undergraduate course. In year 1, the project will focus on implementing activities and investigating students’ engagement in these activities and their degree and type of transfer of the design thinking strategies into their capstone project. In year 2, efforts will focus on using the findings to reformulate the conceptual framework and pedagogical principles, redesigning the activities, implementing them, and investigating students’ engagement and transfer. Deliverables from this project will include the conceptual framework of design thinking strategies transfer, and the pedagogical principles of designing for transfer of these design thinking strategies. The researchers will disseminate these products in engineering education research conference presentations, peer-reviewed journals, and educator workshops. The findings will also provide the basis for future NSF engineering education proposals.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.