A comparative study on undergraduate and practicing engineer knowledge of the roles of problem definition and idea generation in design

• Autores: Reid Bailey
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 24, no. Extra 2, 2008 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Design and Engineering Education in a Flat World), págs. 226-233
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Little doubt exists that globalization will be a dominant part of engineering in the twenty-first century. This major shift–from engineerscollaborating and competing within a fairly limited region to engineers collaborating and competing around the world–will requireengineers to possess different knowledge to be successful. Two areas of design knowledge that are becoming more important due toglobalization are problem definition and idea generation. These areas of knowledge are cited as being important because they rely on`right-brain' thinking in addition to analytical know-how, a combination that is more difficult to offshore. In this study, knowledge of theroles of problem definition and idea generation in engineering design is assessed over time: subjects are assessed before any college-levelengineering, during their engineering education, and five or more years after starting to practice engineering. The primary assessmentinstrument involves subjects critiquing a proposed design process; their critiques are then analysed to determine what they know about theroles of problem definition and idea generation in design. Results show that no significant learning about problem definition occurs until anundergraduate's senior year, with large gains also made after graduation by practicing engineers. For idea generation, students learn asignificant amount while enrolled in an introduction to engineering course, but lose this knowledge later during the curriculum.