How Engineering Design Students\u2019 Psychological Safety Impacts Team Concept Generation and Screening Practices

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Cole ◽  
Jacqueline Marhefka ◽  
Kathryn Jablokow ◽  
Susan Mohammed ◽  
Sarah Ritter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Psychological Safety ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Screening Practices ◽  
Design Students ◽  
Team Concept

How Engineering Design Students’ Psychological Safety Impacts Team Concept Generation and Screening Practices

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Cole ◽  
Jacqueline Marhefka ◽  
Kathryn Jablokow ◽  
Susan Mohammed ◽  
Sarah Ritter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Psychological Safety ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Screening Process ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Team Environment ◽  
Team Concept

Abstract Psychological safety has been shown to be a consistent, generalizable, and multilevel predictor of outcomes in performance and learning across fields. While work in this field has suggested that psychological safety can impact the creative process, particularly in the generation of ideas and in the discussions surrounding idea development, there has been limited investigations of psychological safety in the engineering domain. Without this knowledge we do not know when fostering psychological safety in a team environment is most important. This study provides the first attempt at answering this question through an empirical study with 53 engineering design student teams over the course of a 4- and 8-week design project. Specifically, we sought to identify the role of psychological safety on the number and quality (judged by goodness) of ideas generated. In addition, we explored the role of psychological safety on ownership bias and goodness in the concept screening process. The results of the study identified that while psychological safety was not related to the number of ideas a team developed, it was positively related to the quality (goodness) of the ideas developed. In addition, while no relationship was found between psychological safety and ownership bias during concept screening, the results showed that teams with high psychological safety selected a higher percentage of their team members ideas.

Analyzing Participant Behaviors in Design Crowdsourcing Contests Using Causal Inference on Field Data

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (9) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashish M. Chaudhari ◽  
Zhenghui Sha ◽  
Jitesh H. Panchal
Keyword(s):  
Causal Inference ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Field Data ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Future Design ◽  
Game Theoretic

Crowdsourcing is the practice of getting ideas and solving problems using a large number of people on the Internet. It is gaining popularity for activities in the engineering design process ranging from concept generation to design evaluation. The outcomes of crowdsourcing contests depend on the decisions and actions of participants, which in turn depend on the nature of the problem and the contest. For effective use of crowdsourcing within engineering design, it is necessary to understand how the outcomes of crowdsourcing contests are affected by sponsor-related, contest-related, problem-related, and individual-related factors. To address this need, we employ existing game-theoretic models, empirical studies, and field data in a synergistic way using the theory of causal inference. The results suggest that participants' decisions to participate are negatively influenced by higher task complexity and lower reputation of sponsors. However, they are positively influenced by the number of prizes and higher allocation to prizes at higher levels. That is, an amount of money on any following prize generates higher participation than the same amount of money on the first prize. The contributions of the paper are: (a) a causal graph that encodes relationships among factors affecting crowdsourcing contests, derived from game-theoretic models and empirical studies, and (b) a quantification of the causal effects of these factors on the outcomes of GrabCAD, Cambridge, MA contests. The implications of these results on the design of future design crowdsourcing contests are discussed.

Introducing the Industrial Product Realization Process Into Mechanical Engineering Design Education

1995 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vance D. Browne
Keyword(s):  
Product Development ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Process Development ◽  
Project Planning ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Engineering Project ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Realization Process ◽  
Product Realization

Abstract The process by which new products are brought to market — the product realization process, or PRP — can be introduced in engineering design education. In industry, the PRP has been evolving to concurrent engineering and product teams. The PRP includes components such as concept generation, analysis, manufacturing process development and customer interaction. Also, it involves the sequencing of the components and their connections which includes teamwork, project planning, meetings, reports and presentations. A capstone senior engineering project, along with classroom lectures and presentations can be structured to provide knowledge and experience to the students in many of the PRP components and the connections. This paper will give an overview of the PRP and a project/lecture structure at the author’s university. The instructor recently joined the academic ranks after years in industry with responsibility for directing product development and R&D and for leading product development teams.

Design Whodunit: The Relationship Between Individual Characteristics and Interaction Behaviors in Design Concept Generation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neeraj Sonalkar ◽  
Kathryn Jablokow ◽  
Jonathan Edelman ◽  
Ade Mabogunje ◽  
Larry Leifer
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Specific Interaction ◽  
Behavioral Model ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Team Interactions ◽  
Responding To Change ◽  
Cognitive Behavioral Model ◽  
Interaction Behaviors ◽  
The Relationship

This paper investigates the relationship between interaction behaviors and the cognitive characteristics of participating individuals in engineering design teams engaged in concept generation. Individual characteristics were measured using the Kirton Adaption-Innovation inventory (KAI), which assesses an individual’s cognitive preference for structure in seeking and responding to change. Team interactions were measured using the Interaction Dynamics Notation (IDN), which allows interaction behaviors to be quantitatively analyzed. A correlation analysis revealed statistically significant correlations between individual characteristics and specific interaction behaviors, and ideation utterances. An interaction sequence analysis of the team data also revealed specific interaction sequences associated with greater probabilities of idea occurrence within the team. These findings serve as a first step towards building a cognitive-behavioral model of engineering design team performance.

Function-based, biologically inspired concept generation

2010 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-535 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacquelyn K.S. Nagel ◽  
Robert L. Nagel ◽  
Robert B. Stone ◽  
Daniel A. McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Biological Systems ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Biological Information ◽  
Biological Knowledge ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Biologically Inspired ◽  
Modeling Methodology ◽  
Functional Representation ◽  
Engineering Designs

AbstractThe natural world provides numerous cases for inspiration in engineering design. Biological organisms, phenomena, and strategies, which we refer to as biological systems, provide a rich set of analogies. These systems provide insight into sustainable and adaptable design and offer engineers billions of years of valuable experience, which can be used to inspire engineering innovation. This research presents a general method for functionally representing biological systems through systematic design techniques, leading to the conceptualization of biologically inspired engineering designs. Functional representation and abstraction techniques are used to translate biological systems into an engineering context. The goal is to make the biological information accessible to engineering designers who possess varying levels of biological knowledge but have a common understanding of engineering design. Creative or novel engineering designs may then be discovered through connections made between biology and engineering. To assist with making connections between the two domains concept generation techniques that use biological information, engineering knowledge, and automatic concept generation software are employed. Two concept generation approaches are presented that use a biological model to discover corresponding engineering components that mimic the biological system and use a repository of engineering and biological information to discover which biological components inspire functional solutions to fulfill engineering requirements. Discussion includes general guidelines for modeling biological systems at varying levels of fidelity, advantages, limitations, and applications of this research. The modeling methodology and the first approach for concept generation are illustrated by a continuous example of lichen.

Students’ Perceptions of Humor and Creativity in Project-Organized Groups (pogs) in Engineering Design Education in China

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chunfang Zhou
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Design Practice ◽  
Communication Tool ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Project Groups ◽  
Design Students ◽  
Education In China ◽  
Learner’S Perspective

This study explores engineering design students’ perceptions of humor in the experiences of creativity development in Project-Organized Groups (pogs). This study links theories including humor, learning, creativity, and engineering design in one framework. Empirically, this study carried out interviews with a total of 13 students in engineering design education at Northeastern University (neu) in China. We found that students think all humorous people are creative, and they welcome humor in project groups; they also regard humor as not only a personality or communication tool, but also the outcome of applying creative ideas in design practice. The students additionally think that humor is mainly used to keep individuals’ harmonious relationship with the group and that humor is the immediate ability to create using language in ongoing communication contexts. These findings are helpful to unpack the black box of humor from a learner’s perspective and contribute to future joint efforts of studies on humor and creativity in engineering design education.

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