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

该项目将专注于改善工程专业学生和专业人士学习设计解决方案的方式，使使用这些解决方案的广泛人群受益。工程专业的学生来学习工程设计通过密集的项目为基础的课程被称为他们的顶点课程，一个过程中，他们的形成工程师的关键。在这些课程中，学生经常通过在团队中设计项目来模仿行业实践，其过程与他们在工作场所可能经历的过程类似。然而，工程教育和实践的研究继续表明，许多设计学习发生在学生获得工程学位毕业后。如果工程专业的学生更多地参与他们的顶点课程，他们是否可以更好地在工作场所实践高质量的设计？如何设计顶点课程，激励学生学习设计与过程的更深层次的联系？该项目将通过对工程专业学生和专业人士的深入研究来解决这些关键问题，并制定一项持续的计划，以使工程设计教师为学生的工作做好准备。工程专业学生如何参加顶级课程以及他们的参与如何受到身份和动机需求的驱动，这些细节知之甚少。本项目的目标将是调查如何以及为什么土木和机械工程专业的学生和实习工程师从事工程设计活动。具体而言，该项目将以下列目标为特点：1）开发学生和专业人士的设计活动参与和身份动机的模型，2）扩展我们的模型，以考虑学术和工作场所环境之间以及跨学科之间的阻力和协同作用，对齐和紧张关系，和3）通过与工程学院的广泛合作和培训，促进学生在多个学术环境中的全面和真实参与。顶点设计经验是特别独特的，因为显式和隐式的目标集中在尽可能模拟工程设计经验。因此，学生如何以及为什么在顶点课程中从事工程设计是理解和提高顶点课程效率的基础。我们将使用建构主义扎根理论（CGT）来研究如何以及为什么在四个重要的设置这一现象。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参与设计是提高我们对学术和工作场所参与度的理解的关键一步，结果可以广泛地为提高学生参与度的努力提供信息。该项目的进一步特点是形成了设计学习研究所（EDLI），在那里我们将招募一个跨机构的队列，10个顶点导师，以支持他们在他们的设计教学，并制定有关如何研究成果可能被教育工作者应用的背景相关的见解。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持，通过评估使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

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.