Problem-solving Strategies and Expertise in Engineering Design

Ball, Linden J.; Evans, Jonathan St. B. T.; Dennis, Ian; Ormerod, Thomas C.

doi:10.1080/135467897394284

Cited by 122 publications

(78 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…In design, problems and solutions co-evolve [Dorst and Cross 2001], constraints are often negotiable [Schon 1995], subproblems are interconnected [Goel and Pirolli 1992], and solutions are not right or wrong, only better or worse [Rittel and Webber 1973]. How and when to explore or refine solutions to open-ended problems remains an active debate in design research and education [Ball et al 1997;Cross 2006;Nielsen and Faber 1996]. Without exploration, designers may choose a design concept too early and fail to identify a valuable direction [Cross 2004].…”

Section: Theoretical Benefits Of Parallel Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallel Prototyping Leads to Better Design Results, More Divergence, and Increased Self-efficacy

Dow¹,

Glassco²,

Kass³

et al. 2011

Design Thinking Research

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Iteration can help people improve ideas. It can also give rise to fixation, continuously refining one option without considering others. Does creating and receiving feedback on multiple prototypes in parallel, as opposed to serially, affect learning, self-efficacy, and design exploration? An experiment manipulated whether independent novice designers created graphic Web advertisements in parallel or in series. Serial participants received descriptive critique directly after each prototype. Parallel participants created multiple prototypes before receiving feedback. As measured by clickthrough data and expert ratings, ads created in the Parallel condition significantly outperformed those from the Serial condition. Moreover, independent raters found Parallel prototypes to be more diverse. Parallel participants also reported a larger increase in task-specific self-confidence. This article outlines a theoretical foundation for why parallel prototyping produces better design results and discusses the implications for design education.

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Section: Theoretical Benefits Of Parallel Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parallel Prototyping Leads to Better Design Results, More Divergence, and Increased Self-efficacy

Dow¹,

Glassco²,

Kass³

et al. 2011

Design Thinking Research

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show abstract

“…There are di ering accounts as to the extent to which designers opportunistically deviate from an optimal strategy. Ball et al (1997) found satis® cing to be a relatively rare occurrence, but U llman (1988) in their empirically motivated model of design, argue that generally design involves early commitment to, and re® ning of, a suboptimal solution. It is clear that satis® cing is often advantageous due to reduced cost, or where only a satisfactory rather than an optimal design is required.…”

Section: The Nature Of Professional Engineering Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The design process is often characterized as a top-down breadth-® rst search of the space of possible solutions (Ball et al 1997). This ® gures strongly in prescriptions of how the design process should proceed (Cross 1989).…”

Section: The Nature Of Professional Engineering Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Sharing engineering design knowledge in a distributed environment

Zdráhal

Mulholland

Domingue

et al. 2000

Behaviour & Information Technology

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Abstract. Engineering design is a complex activity, relying heavily on know-how gained from personal experience. Competitive pressures and new technology are making further demands on the skills and experience of designers, as e ective knowledge reuse in design is seen as increasingly vital, and the work of design teams is often a collaborative and distributed activity. U niversity students with a thorough knowledge of the engineering domain can be ill prepared for professional practice, with its increasing reliance on skills and know-how as well as knowledge of theory. Our approach aims to better prepare students for professional practice, through hands-on experience of design reuse, participation in distributed collaboration, and the development of presentation and documentation skills. Our case-study in the domain of modelling engineering systems, in which the course materials themselves are evolving and distributed, has rami® cations for the publication model of educational materials, and the way students should be prepared for working life.

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“…By using a top-down approach to problem solving, students are more likely to see the underlying problem and deduce a new solution that is logically the best solution, rather than opt for a known solution because the design problem is similar to a problem taught in the class. 18 By using analogies to teach, engineers practice using this method of solution-finding that is commonly used for scientific discovery. In science, analogies are used to find new hypotheses by comparing the current unknown problem with a solved case that has some similarities, prompting one to ask if both can be understood in the same way.…”

Section: Literature Review and Hypothesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring Innovation, Psychological Safety, Communication, and Knowledge Application in a Multidisciplinary Capstone Design Course

Balouchestani-Asli¹,

Greenacre²,

Behdinan³

2016 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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Narges Balouchestani-Asli is an M.A.Sc. Candidate with the Institute for Multidisciplinary Design and Innovation (UT-IMDI) at the University of Toronto. She is also part of the Collaborative Program in Engineering Education at the University of Toronto. She holds an Honors Bachelor in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Toronto. During her studies at the University of Toronto she was involved as a Teaching Assistance with more than four engineering design courses from first year to fourth year. Her research focuses on team level factors affecting innovation in capstone design courses. In recent years, engineering schools have been inspired by accreditation bodies to incorporate multidisciplinary teaming in their curricula, and hence engineering schools have started to offer multidisciplinary capstone design courses. These courses give senior engineering students industry/client based projects in order to prepare them for today's diverse educational and professional work place. In contrast to monodisciplinary capstones, multidisciplinary capstones create a diverse team of students from different engineering disciplines to design, build, and test proof of concepts for an industry based project. There is limited quantitative and qualitative research about multidisciplinary capstone's performance. Hence to provide insight on multidisciplinary capstone's performance, we explored the relationship between innovation (at the individual level and at the team level), psychological safety, knowledge transfer (application of one's knowledge), and feedback from teammates, supervisors, and clients in a multidisciplinary engineering capstone course. We also investigated barriers that multidisciplinary capstone teams encountered to be innovative by observing the teams' psychological safety behaviors. We hypothesised that multidisciplinary teams are likely to produce innovative solutions due to their functional diversity. However, functional diversity can also lead to conflict. According to literature, multidisciplinary teams have low psychological safety score because of their diversity. Low psychological safety affects team's collaborative learning and efficiency. We investigated these factors and relationships in multidisciplinary capstone.A mix of quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this study. We did an online survey with a 55% response rate. Moreover, we conducted 11 one-on-one interviews with students over a course of one year. Our questionnaire included a set of questions on innovation, psychological safety, knowledge use and transfer, and feedback. We examined our data to find relationships between these variables that can help us understand the dynamics of innovation in a multidisciplinary capstone course. We found correlations between the psychological safety score of teams and their collaborative learning and team efficiency. We also found that team innovation has a particularly strong correlation with psychological safety and is also significantly correlated with teammate's feedback score.Our...

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Problem-solving Strategies and Expertise in Engineering Design

Cited by 122 publications

References 14 publications

Parallel Prototyping Leads to Better Design Results, More Divergence, and Increased Self-efficacy

Parallel Prototyping Leads to Better Design Results, More Divergence, and Increased Self-efficacy

Sharing engineering design knowledge in a distributed environment

Exploring Innovation, Psychological Safety, Communication, and Knowledge Application in a Multidisciplinary Capstone Design Course

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