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Systems Thinking in Engineering Design: Differences in Expert vs. Novice
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Systems Thinking in Engineering Design: Differences in Expert vs. Novice

Yuzhen Lu, Kurt Becker, John Gero, Idalis Villanueva Alarcon and Oenardi Lawanto
The International journal of engineering education, v 37(5), pp 1398-1413
01 Jan 2021

Abstract

Education & Educational Research Education, Scientific Disciplines Engineering Engineering, Multidisciplinary Science & Technology Social Sciences Technology
Systems thinking is a way of seeing and talking about the system so that we can understand and work with the system. It is both a cognitive ability and skill that is desired amongst engineers because of the complex problems that they are expected to solve in the workplace. Developing systems thinking capabilities of the engineering workforce is an industry endeavor as well as a desirable learning outcome for engineering education. This opens opportunities for research to better understand systems thinking of experts (professional engineers) in industry and novices (engineering students) in postsecondary education. The purpose of this study was to understand and compare the differences between expert and novice systems thinking in engineering design. Knowledge of experts and novices in their systems thinking can help inform engineering education on ways to bridge this gap in post-secondary settings. Using tools developed from Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) Ontology, existing protocol data for 61 teams of 2 (18 professionals, 19 seniors, and 24 first-year students) underwent systems hierarchical coding and statistical analysis. Results show that systems thinking of professionals and senior engineering students are similar while first-year students were significantly different from their counterparts. This paper discusses several implications for systems thinking in engineering education and future research.

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