Practical Epistemic Cognition in a Design Project—Engineering Students Developing Epistemic Fluency

Abstract

Contribution: This work reports engineering students' practical epistemic cognition by studying their interactional work in situ. Studying "epistemologies in action" the study breaks away from mainstream approaches that describe this in terms of beliefs or of stage theories.Background: In epistemology, knowledge is traditionally seen as "justified true belief", neglecting knowledge related to action. Interest has increased in studying the epistemologies people use in situated action, and their development of epistemic fluency. How appropriate such approaches are in engineering and design education need further investigation.Research Questions: 1) How do students in the context of a design project use epistemic tools in their interactional work? 2) What are the implications of the findings in terms of how students' cognitive and epistemological development could be conceptualized?Methodology: A collaborative group of six students were video recorded on the 14th day of a fifth-semester design project, as they were preparing for a formal critique session. The entire, almost six hour, session was recorded by four video cameras mounted in the design studio, with an additional fifth body-mounted camera. The video data collected was analyzed using video ethnographic, conversation analysis, and embodied interaction analysis methods.Findings: The results show that the students use a wealth of bodily-material resources as an integral and seamless part of their interactions as epistemic tools, in their joint production of understanding and imagining. The analysis also suggests that students' epistemological and cognitive development, individually and as a group, should be understood in terms of developing "epistemic fluency".Index Terms-Collaborative learning, design thinking, epistemology, epistemic cognition, epistemic fluency, interaction analysis, problem-based learning, video ethnography.J. Bernhard is with the

Understanding student use of epistemic criteria in engineering design contexts

“…In this study, we consider engineering through the lens of design specifically. Bernhard et al (2019) argue that design is essential to engineering, explaining that design is a complex process where designers must synthesize many variables, parameters, and values to produce a solution. Dym et al (2005) define engineering design as an intelligent, thoughtful process with the goal of producing design concepts for a client or user.…”

“…Both of these scholarly works also include consideration of design as a collaborative process and emphasize that although design includes an analytical aspect to evaluate products, there is no single correct solution. Furthermore, engineering design is pragmatic in that it uses many sources of information, and that it is purposeful (Bernhard et al, 2019; Dym et al, 2005). Therefore, epistemic goals that are meaningful to the engineering design community include engaging in complex design processes that lead to a high‐quality product intended for a client or user.…”

“…However, despite this clear importance of social and collaborative work in design, there remain very few studies examining engineering students' consideration of collaboration to make design decisions. Bernhard et al (2019) describe undergraduate architecture and design students using models, drawings, and gestures as epistemic tools to effectively communicate and socially develop an understanding of a problem and its solution. Kelly and Cunningham (2019) have similarly observed elementary students sharing data within and across student groups, making the case for a solution with evidence‐based arguments, and socially deciding how to use data (Cunningham & Kelly, 2017b).…”

Is “digital education” the right way forward? – Or is, maybe, postdigital education what is needed!

“…We are here only showing a very short excerpt. A fuller presentation of this material can be found in references [24,[26][27][28].…”

Problem Construction in Problem-Based Learning: How Students Deal with Disagreements in Decision-Making

“…Video observation has additionally been used to examine PBL in higher education (Azer & Azer, 2015;Bernhard et al, 2019;Hendry et al, 2016;Koschmann et al, 1997;McQuade et al, 2019). One study examined how group cohesion is performed in problem-based learning tutorials.…”