The Trajectory of Psychological Safety in Engineering Teams: A Longitudinal Exploration in Engineering Design Education

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scarlett Miller ◽  
Jacqueline Marhefka ◽  
Katie Heininger ◽  
Kathryn Jablokow ◽  
Susan Mohammed ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Education ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Team Performance ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Psychological Safety ◽  
Engineering Student ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Engineering Research ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Potential Factors

Abstract Although teamwork is being integrated throughout engineering education because of the perceived benefits of teams, the construct of psychological safety has been largely ignored in engineering research. This omission is unfortunate, because psychological safety reflects collective perceptions about how comfortable team members feel in sharing their perspectives and it has been found to positively impact team performance in samples outside of engineering [20]. Engineering team research has also been crippled by “snap-shot” methodologies and the resulting lack of investigation into the dynamic changes that happen within a team over course projects. This is problematic, because we do not know when, how, or what type of interventions are needed to effectively improve “t-shaped” engineering skills like teamwork, communication, and engaging successfully in a diverse team. In light of these issues, the goal of the current study was to understand how psychological safety might be measured practically and reliably in engineering student teams over time. In addition, we sought to identify the trajectory of psychological safety for engineering design student teams and identify the potential factors that impact the building and waning of psychological safety in these teams. This was accomplished through a 4-week study with 12 engineering design teams where data was captured at six time points. The results of this study present some of the first evidence on the reliability of psychological safety in engineering student populations. The results also help begin to answer some difficult fundamental questions on supporting team performance in engineering education.

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.

Challenges and Strategies in Remote Design Collaboration During Pandemic: A Case Study in Engineering Education

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise Belanger ◽  
Caroline Bartels ◽  
Jinjuan She
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
College Education ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Design Collaboration ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Geographically Distributed ◽  
Remote Design ◽  
Challenges And Strategies

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic forced college education to shift from face-to-face to online instruction. This effort is particularly challenging for freshmen and sophomore students, in engineering design projects where collaborations are needed. The study aims to qualitatively understand challenges and possible strategies revealed by students in remote design collaboration through the lens of an undergraduate-level engineering design introduction class. The authors closely observed team members’ struggles and how they handled them through bi-weekly and final reflections in a semester-long project. The challenges and strategies from 11 teams (42 students) were analyzed and implications for future engineering design education were discussed. The findings provide insights to experimentations that aim to establish a successful remote learning environment that reaches core education objectives of engineering design while also helping students adapt to a geographically distributed engineering workforce in future. The study also illustrated the usefulness of reflections as a tool to capture students’ learning dynamics.

scholarly journals CHALLENGES IN ENGINEERING DESIGN EDUCATION: VERTICAL AND LATERAL LEARNING

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksander Czekanski ◽  
Maher Al-Dojayli ◽  
Tom Lee
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Education ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Engineering Practice ◽  
Design Strategies ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Advanced Analysis ◽  
Capstone Projects ◽  
Team Design

Engineering practice and design in particular have gone through several changes during the last two decades whether due to scientific achievements including the evolution in novel engineering materials, computational advancements, globalization and economic constraints as well as the strategic needs which are the drive for innovative engineering. All these factors have impacted and shaped to certain extent the educational system in North America and Canada in particular. Currently, high percentage of the engineering graduates would require extensive training in industry to be able to conduct reliable complex engineering designs supported by scientific verification and validation, understand the complete design stages and phases, and identify the economic and cultural impact on such designs. This task, however, faces great challenges without educational support in such vastly changing economy.Lots of attention has been devoted to engineering design education in the recent years to incorporate engineering design courses supported by team design projects and capstone projects. Nevertheless, the lack of integrated education system towards engineering design programs can undermine the benefits of such efforts. In this paper, observations and analysis of the challenges in engineering design are presented from both academic and industrial points of view. Furthermore, a proposed vertical and lateral engineering education program is discussed. This program is structured to cover every year of the engineering education curricula, which emphasizes on innovative thinking, design strategies, support from and integration with other technical engineering courses, the use of advanced analysis tools, team collaboration, management and leadership, multidisciplinary education and industrial involvement. Its courses have just commenced for freshmen engineering students at the newly launched Mechanical Engineering Department at the Lassonde School of Engineering, York University.

scholarly journals How Concept Selection Tools Impact the Development of Creative Ideas in Engineering Design Education

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Zheng ◽  
Sarah C. Ritter ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Concept Selection ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Selection Tools

Concept selection tools have been heavily integrated into engineering design education in an effort to reduce the risks and uncertainties of early-phase design ideas and aid students in the decision-making process. However, little research has examined the utility of these tools in promoting creative ideas or their impact on student team decision making throughout the conceptual design process. To fill this research gap, the current study was designed to compare the impact of two concept selection tools, the concept selection matrix (CSM) and the tool for assessing semantic creativity (TASC) on the average quality (AQL) and average novelty (ANV) of ideas selected by student teams at several decision points throughout an 8-week project. The results of the study showed that the AQL increased significantly in the detailed design stage, while the ANV did not change. However, this change in idea quality was not significantly impacted by the concept selection tool used, suggesting other factors may impact student decision making and the development of creative ideas. Finally, student teams were found to select ideas ranked highly in concept selection tools only when these ideas met their expectations, indicating that cognitive biases may be significantly impeding decision making.

Using Product Archaeology to Integrate Global, Economic, Environmental, and Societal Factors in Introductory Design Education

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erich Devendorf ◽  
Phil Cormier ◽  
Deborah Moore-Russo ◽  
Kemper Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Education ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Mechanical Design ◽  
Engineering Curriculum ◽  
Educational Strategies ◽  
Senior Year ◽  
Societal Factors ◽  
Design Activities ◽  
Upper Level

Design education has traditionally been incorporated into the engineering curriculum in the junior or senior year through upper level mechanical design courses and capstone design projects. However, there is a general trend in engineering education to incorporate design activities at the freshman and sophomore level. The design aspects of these courses provide a unique opportunity to integrate global, economic, environmental, and societal factors with traditional design considerations. Incorporating these early in an engineering curriculum supports a broad engineering education in accordance with ABET required Outcome h. In this paper we introduce global, economic, environmental, and societal factors into a sophomore level engineering design course using strategies adapted from a Product Archaeology paradigm. Specifically, functional modeling is synthesized with a product dissection platform to create a foundation to demonstrate the broader impacts of engineering design decisions. The effectiveness of using Product Archaeology-based educational strategies to facilitate the learning objectives of Outcome h is evaluated using student surveys taken over a two year period.

Helping Teams Expand the Breadth of Their Solution Space Through Product Dissection: A Simulation Based Investigation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Alsager Alzayed ◽  
Christopher McComb ◽  
Samuel T. Hunter ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Computational Simulation ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
First Year ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Simulation Based ◽  
The Impact

Product dissection has been highlighted as an effective means of interacting with example products in order to produce creative outcomes. While product dissection is often conducted as a team in engineering design education as a component of larger engineering design projects, the research on the effectiveness of product dissection activities has been primarily limited to individuals. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate the impact of the type(s) of product dissected in a team environment on the breadth of the design space explored and the underlying influence of educational level on these effects. This was accomplished through a computational simulation of 7,000 nominal brainstorming teams generated by a statistical bootstrapping technique that accounted for all possible team configurations. Specifically, each team was composed of four team members based on a design repository of 463 ideas generated by first-year and senior engineering design students after a product dissection activity. The results of the study highlight that simulated senior engineering design teams explored a larger solution space than simulated first-year teams and that dissecting different types of products allowed for the exploration of a larger solution space for all of the teams. The results also showed that dissecting two analogically far and two simple products was most effective in expanding the solution space for simulated senior teams. The findings presented in this study can lead to a better understanding of how to most effectively deploy product dissection modules in engineering design education in order to maximize the solution space explored.

scholarly journals Engaging Students in Meaningful Learning: Understanding Student Perspectives of Engineering Design Education

1969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Aleong ◽  
David Strong
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Engineering Education ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Full Extent ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Master's Thesis ◽  
Research Findings

Learning how to design plays a vital role inengineering education to prepare students to solve openended,complex problems. To serve the continuousimprovement of engineering design education, a qualitative study of undergraduate engineering students’perspectives of engineering design was conducted. This research aims to understand the meaning students place on design in their engineering education and how thismeaning is described. By examining what students thinkabout learning and practicing design, engineeringeducators can be better positioned to enhanceinstructional strategies and curriculum development. The full extent of the research findings and implicationswill be presented in the researcher’s master’s thesis. This spaper serves to highlight the application of qualitativeresearch and the learning sciences in engineering education.

Study of Team Management and Performance with Linear Regression: A Empirical Study Based on 12 Step Method

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 168-176
Author(s):  
Jian Yu ◽  
Weichu Xu ◽  
M Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Team Performance ◽  
Business Students ◽  
University Student ◽  
Team Management ◽  
Step Method ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Student Teams ◽  
Teamwork Skills ◽  
And Performance ◽  
The Relationship

Teamwork skills have becoming an important asset that employees can bring into an organization. How to make employees work with other team members and make team effective is an important issue in business education. In order to make sense which factors in team management will help improve team performance, we try to design a test among students. In this paper, we focus on using 12-step method to help business students acquire their teamwork skills and improve their team performance in class, and propose and examine several hypotheses on the relationship between 12-step and their impact on team performance with a dataset collecting from university student teams. The results show that initial sharing, continuous sharing and feedbacks are positively associated with team performance, but expectation, equity and celebration are negatively associated with team performance. The findings provide some insights about how to apply different steps in different environments, and show that some measures and steps should be paid more attention in training in a firm or other organizations.

The Impact of Team-Based Product Dissection on Design Novelty

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A. Toh ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller ◽  
Gül E. Okudan Kremer
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Design Concepts ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Current Design ◽  
The Impact

Although design novelty is a critical area of research in engineering design, most research in this space has focused on understanding and developing formal idea generation methods instead of focusing on the impact of current design practices. This is problematic because formal techniques are often not adopted in industry due to the burdensome steps often included in these methods, which limit the practicality and adoption of these methods. This study seeks to understand the impact of product dissection, a design method widely utilized in academia and industry, on design novelty in order to produce recommendations for the use or alterations of this method for supporting novelty in design. To investigate the impact of dissection, a study was conducted with 76 engineering students who completed a team-based dissection of an electric toothbrush and then individually generated ideas. The relationships between involvement in the dissection activity, the product dissected, the novelty and quantity of the ideas developed were investigated. The results reveal that team members who were more involved in the dissection activity generated concepts that were more novel than those who did not. In addition, the type of the dissected product also had an influence on design novelty. Finally, a positive correlation between the number of ideas generated and the novelty of the design concepts was identified. The results from this study are used to provide recommendations for leveraging product dissection for enhancing novelty in engineering design education and practice.

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