Collaborative Research: Proofing A Basic Systems Engineering Model Through Empirically-Based Cognitive Testing

美国的全球领导地位部分取决于其在竞争日益激烈和复杂的环境中的工程和设计能力。长期以来，趋势一直是朝着更大、更复杂的系统发展。系统工程方法论旨在解决当今工程挑战的复杂性。目前，只有叙述性的理论模型，涵盖了整个系统工程。这些模型已被证明难以测试，由于其话语性质。这个项目解决了如何这样的理论模型可以测试定量实验结果来自研究工程师进行系统设计。这将导致改进的系统工程模型，并用于促进美国的全球领导地位。该项目的结果构成了提高对工程系统设计的科学理解的基础，并对系统工程实践和教育产生直接影响。它将展示一种新的研究技术，可用于测试其他话语的理论模型，并将奠定基础，为未来的测试系统engineer. Description的教育理论模型，旨在捕捉和提高工程系统设计的建议，但没有测试。这个项目的目标是应用的方法转换成一个基于认知的本体的叙事理论模型，目的是产生一个表示，允许定量表示和测试。这种方法将话语模型视为有声思维协议的表达。这个项目是基于一个新开发的技术，表示这种描述性的理论模型，将它们翻译成功能-行为-结构（FBS）本体，它作为一个共同的本体，然后分割和编码的结果，如果它是一个有声思维协议。FBS本体是一个高度基础的本体，已被证明是有效的工程设计过程中表示。然后，这允许的理论模型进行比较，通过研究工程师的设计认知设计使用的think-aloud协议分割和编码使用FBS本体获得的结果。由于理论模型和实验结果都是相同的形式，因此现在可以测试理论模型与实验结果的一致性。该奖项反映了NSF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。

America's global leadership depends in part on its engineering and design capabilities in an increasingly competitive and complex environment. Trends have long been toward larger and more complicated systems. Systems engineering methodology is intended to address the complexity of today's engineering challenges. Currently, there are only narrative theoretical models that cover the entirety of systems engineering. These models have proven difficult to test due to their discursive nature. This project addresses how such theoretical models can be tested against quantitative experimental results derived from studying engineers performing systems design. This will result in improved systems engineering models and used to contribute to America's global leadership. The results of this project form the basis of an increased scientific understanding of engineering systems design with direct implications for systems engineering practice and education. It will demonstrate a novel research technique that can be used to test other discursive theoretical models and will lay the foundation for the future testing of the education of systems engineers.Descriptive theoretical models that aim to capture and enhance engineering systems design have been suggested but not tested. The goal of this project is to apply the approach of converting a narrative theoretical model into a cognitively-based ontology with the aim of producing a representation that allows for quantitative representations and testing. This approach treats the discursive model as the articulation of a think-aloud protocol. This project is based on a newly developed technique of representing such descriptive theoretical models by translating them into the Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) ontology, which serves as a common ontology, and then segmenting and coding the result as if it were a think-aloud protocol. The FBS ontology is a highly-grounded ontology that has been shown to be effective in representing the engineering design process. This then allows the theoretical model to be compared with results obtained by studying the design cognition of engineers designing using a think-aloud protocol segmented and coded using the FBS ontology. Since both the theoretical model and the experimental results are in the same form the theoretical model can now be tested for coherence with the experimental results.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.