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Quantifying differences between professional expert engineers and engineering students designing: Empirical foundations for improved engineering education
Conference proceeding

Quantifying differences between professional expert engineers and engineering students designing: Empirical foundations for improved engineering education

Kurt Henry Becker, John S. Gero, Morteza Pourmohamadi, Sarah Abdellahi, Lilian Maria De Souza Almeida and Yuzhen Luo
2018 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition
23 Jun 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--30911

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a National Science Foundation funded project that measures and compares the design thinking of teams of engineering students and teams of expert engineers through a study of their cognitive processes while designing. Using protocol analysis, statistically significant evidence from a controlled study of cohorts of teams of freshmen, seniors and professionals formed the source data, which were then coded using the FBS ontology. Statistical modeling was used to quantitatively measure and compare their respective cognition while designing. Comparisons of freshmen and seniors’ data determine the effect of educational intervention. And comparisons of seniors’ and professionals’ data reveal learning trajectories across formal education and practice. The results of these comparisons identify gaps in design cognition between these cohorts, which will serve as the basis to help education leaders make informed decisions to improve engineering education.

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