Collaborative Information Behaviour of Engineering Students

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasser Saleh ◽  
Andrew Large
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Information Behaviour ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering

Collaborative information behaviour is an emerging area in information science that studies when two or more actors identify, seek, search, and use information to accomplish a task. This paper reports on a recent research investigating the collaborative information behaviour of undergraduate engineering students in the context of engineering design group projects.Le comportement informationnel collaboratif est un sujet émergent en sciences de l’information qui s’intéresse aux moments où deux acteurs ou plus cherchent, repèrent, sélectionnent et utilisent l’information pour accomplir une tâche. Cette communication présente une étude récente sur le comportement informationnel informatif des étudiants en génie dans le contexte de projets de groupe en conception technique.

Initiating Development of a Concept Inventory for Engineering Design

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey R. Mountain
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Concept ◽  
Concept Inventory ◽  
Design Problems ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Education Community ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Fundamental Understanding

It has been stated that the topic of design is not conducive to assessment by concept inventory. While design problems are more ambiguous than problems in analytical subjects, such as physics, statics, or thermodynamics; the broader design education community of scholars might agree on a set of concepts that are essential to the fundamental understanding of design. Following a review of textbooks, industry interviews, and other literary sources, this paper will propose a set of commonly accepted overarching concepts that might form a nucleus of an engineering design concept inventory. This is intended primarily to initiate a dialog among the design engineering education community about the future development of a design concept inventory and it’s applicability in assessing the design content knowledge of undergraduate engineering students prior to entering the profession as graduate engineers.

International Trends in Engineering Design Education—A Partial View

1979 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-545
Author(s):  
A. Bar-Cohen
Keyword(s):  
System Design ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Education ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Engineering Program ◽  
International Trends ◽  
Engineering Design Education ◽  
Partial View ◽  
Developed Nations

Approaches to engineering design education in several developing and developed nations are reviewed and found to suggest widespread recognition of the need for early and frequent student exposure to the pragmatic and often controlling aspects of mechanical system design. In this context, it appears that the undergraduate engineering program at most U.S. Universities may not contribute to the ability of engineering students to pursue successful careers in engineering innovation and design.

Dissection Versus Incubation: The Within-Subject Effects of Product Dissection Activities on Design Variety

2019 ◽  
Vol 142 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth M. Starkey ◽  
Mohammad Alsager Alzayed ◽  
Samuel Hunter ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Solution Space ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Personality Test ◽  
Educational Tool ◽  
Incubation Condition ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Design Ideas

Abstract Product dissection is a popular educational tool in engineering design due to its ability to help students understand a product, provide inspiration for new design ideas, and aid in product redesign. While prior research has investigated how dissecting a product before idea generation impacts the creative output of the ideation session, these studies failed to look at the types of ideas generated before dissection or how the type of product dissected impacts this. Thus, the goal of the current study was to examine how product dissection impacts the solution space explored by students. Fifty-five undergraduate engineering students participated in the experiment; 40 participants virtually dissected a product, while the remaining 15 completed a personality test. The results of the study highlight that students explored new types of ideas during the second ideation session for all conditions and at all levels, with students having the biggest increase in embodiment variety when they dissected analogically far products. Overall, there were no differences in design variety between students in the dissection condition and the incubation condition. This study highlights how incubation can impact design variety and calls for further investigation of the interaction between product dissection and incubation.

How Engineering Design Students’ Creative Preferences and Cognitive Styles Impact Their Concept Generation and Screening

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Heininger ◽  
Hong-En Chen ◽  
Kathryn Jablokow ◽  
Scarlett R. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Design ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
Risk Tolerance ◽  
Concept Generation ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Engineering Design Process ◽  
Individual Traits ◽  
The Impact

The flow of creative ideas throughout the engineering design process is essential for innovation. However, few studies have examined how individual traits affect problem-solving behaviors in an engineering design setting. Understanding these behaviors will enable us to guide individuals during the idea generation and concept screening phases of the engineering design process and help support the flow of creative ideas through this process. As a first step towards understanding these behaviors, we conducted an exploratory study with 19 undergraduate engineering students to examine the impact of individual traits, using the Preferences for Creativity Scale (PCS) and Kirton’s Adaption-Innovation inventory (KAI), on the creativity of the ideas generated and selected for an engineering design task. The ideas were rated for their creativity, quality, and originality using Amabile’s consensual assessment technique. Our results show that the PCS was able to predict students’ propensity for creative concept screening, accounting for 74% of the variation in the model. Specifically, team centrality and influence and risk tolerance significantly contributed to the model. However, PCS was unable to predict idea generation abilities. On the other hand, cognitive style, as measured by KAI, predicted the generation of creative and original ideas, as well as one’s propensity for quality concept screening, although the effect sizes were small. Our results provide insights into individual factors impacting undergraduate engineering students’ idea generation and selection.

An Initial Analysis of Undergraduate Student Mental Models of Product Design

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica R. Driscoll ◽  
Steven Hoffenson ◽  
Nicole Pitterson
Keyword(s):  
Product Design ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Mental Models ◽  
Concept Maps ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Design Research ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Design Learning ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Mapping Exercise

Abstract Design is a concept that means different things to different people. Even in the engineering design research community, there is little agreement on a consistent definition of design. This study looks into how engineering students understand product design, using a concept mapping exercise to elicit the key concepts and relationships present in their mental models. An analysis of concept maps from 130 third-year undergraduate engineering students shows how these students think about design, the common themes and relationships that are seen across the population, and variations across different groups of students. By understanding how students in the midst of ABET-accredited programs conceptualize design, conclusions can be drawn regarding the effectiveness of existing curricula in instilling a complete understanding of holistic product design. This can lead to recommendations regarding future engineering design learning objectives, teaching materials, and activities.

scholarly journals WORK IN PROGRESS: HOW ENGINEERING STUDENTS COLLABORATIVELY SEEK INFORMATION IN AN ENGINEERING DESIGN COURSE?

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nasser Saleh
Keyword(s):  
Learning Environment ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Information Seeking ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Conceptual Models ◽  
Design Project ◽  
Information Behaviour ◽  
Senior Design ◽  
Collaborative Information Seeking ◽  
Definition Of

The paper reports a research in progress to study collaborative information seeking practice of learners working in groups in a senior design project course. The research belongs to the area of educational informatics where information behaviour is studied within a learning environment. The paper presents the definition of collaboration and the conceptual models of collaborative information behaviour.

Visualization, Intuition, and Mathematics Metrics as Predictors of Undergraduate Engineering Design Performance

2007 ◽  
Vol 129 (7) ◽  
pp. 735-743 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce W. Field
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Engineering Design ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Correlation Coefficients ◽  
Spatial Skills ◽  
Undergraduate Engineering ◽  
Spatial Skill ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Willingness To Use

Many undergraduate engineering students perform relatively poorly in design courses, even though they are otherwise academically very strong. Some average students perform exceptionally well in design courses. While there are generally strong correlations between the results that each student gains at university, the design outcomes seem somewhat anomalous. It is hypothesized that some of the variation in relative success at design courses is due to the influence of otherwise unused and unmeasured nonacademic attributes. One clue to the existence of additional attributes exploited in design courses arises from an appreciation of “hemispheric preference,” since many of the special tasks in design projects rely on creativity, holistic problem solving, visualization, and intuition; skills normally associated with the brain’s right hemisphere. Students in the second year of the engineering program at Monash University were tested for spatial skill, and completed a management survey that identified their willingness to use intuition during problem solving. Separately, their grades in a series of mathematics and computing courses were obtained, and the set of results was grouped in a multiple regression against their engineering design grades. Whereas the correlation coefficients for the students’ paired grades in several mathematics and other analytical courses were all high, the correlation coefficient between mathematics and their grade in engineering design was weak, but significant. However, when measures of their spatial skills and their willingness to use intuition were factored with their mathematics grade, the composite score was highly correlated with a student’s design grade. It was concluded that while general academic competence was of prime importance, a student’s spatial skill and their comfort in making assumptions were important factors in predicting their design grade.

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