This paper is based on the premises that the purpose of engineering education is to graduate engineers who can design, and that design thinking is complex. The paper begins by briefly reviewing the history and role of design in the engineering curriculum. Several dimensions of design thinking are then detailed, explaining why design is hard to learn and harder still to teach, and outlining the research available on how well design thinking skills are learned. The currently most-favored pedagogical model for teaching design, project-based learning (PBL), is explored next, along with available assessment data on its success. Two contexts for PBL are emphasized: first-year cornerstone courses and globally dispersed PBL courses. Finally, the paper lists some of the open research questions that must be answered to identify the best pedagogical practices of improving design learning, after which it closes by making recommendations for research aimed at enhancing design learning.

Engineering Design Thinking, Teaching, and Learning

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Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning

The purpose of this research review is to open dialog about quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research methods in engineering education research. Our position is that no particular method is privileged over any other. Rather, the choice must be driven by the research questions. For each approach we offer a definition, aims, appropriate research questions, evaluation criteria, and examples from the Journal of Engineering Education. Then, we present empirical results from a prestigious international conference on engineering education research. Participants expressed disappointment in the low representation of qualitative studies; nonetheless, there appeared to be a strong preference for quantitative methods, particularly classroom-based experiments. Given the wide variety of issues still to be explored within engineering education, we expect that quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches will be essential in the future. We encourage readers to further investigate alternate research methods by accessing some of our sources and collaborating across education/social science and engineering disciplinary boundaries.

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Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Research Methods in Engineering Education

Teaching engineering design through senior project or capstone engineering courses has increased in recent years. The trend toward increasing the design component in engineering curricula is part of an effort to better prepare graduates for engineering practice. This paper describes the standard practices and current state of capstone design education throughout the country as revealed through a literature search of over 100 papers relating to engineering design courses. Major topics include the development of capstone design courses, course descriptions, project information, details of industrial involvement, and special aspects of team-oriented design projects. An extensive list of references is provided.

A Review of Literature on Teaching Engineering Design Through Project‐Oriented Capstone Courses

Background

Despite decades of effort focused on improvement of engineering education, many recent advances have not resulted in systemic change. Diffusion of innovations theory is used to better understand this phenomenon.

Purpose (Hypothesis)

Research questions include: How widespread is awareness and adoption of established engineering education innovations? Are there differences by discipline or institutional type? How do engineering department chairs find out about engineering education innovations? What factors do engineering department chairs cite as important in adoption decisions?

Design/Method

U.S. engineering department chairs were surveyed regarding their awareness and department use of seven engineering education innovations. One hundred ninety-seven usable responses are presented primarily as categorical data with Chi square tests where relevant.

Results

Overall, the awareness rate was 82 percent, while the adoption rate was 47 percent. Eighty-two percent of engineering departments employ student-active pedagogies (the highest). Mechanical and civil engineering had the highest rates, in part due to many design-related innovations in the survey. Few differences by institution type were evident. In the past, word of mouth and presentations were far more effective than publications in alerting department chairs to the innovations. Department chairs cited financial resources, faculty time and attitudes, and student satisfaction and learning as major considerations in adoption decisions.

Conclusions

The importance of disciplinary networks was evident during survey administration and in the results. Specific recommendations are offered to employ these networks and the engineering professional societies for future engineering education improvement efforts.

Diffusion of Engineering Education Innovations: A Survey of Awareness and Adoption Rates in U.S. Engineering Departments

Senior project or Capstone-type courses have existed at engineering schools for many years. Capstone courses provide student engineers the opportunity to solve real-world engineering projects, and have been highly regarded as important learning activities. A survey of Capstone courses in engineering departments throughout North America was conducted in order to understand current practices in Capstone education. This study was conducted for presentation at the 1994 Advances in Capstone Education Conference, held at Brigham Young University, which brought together engineering educators interested in improving Capstone experiences. This conference was sponsored by ASEE, ASME, SME, and NSF. Response to the study was very high, with 360 departments from 173 schools responding to the survey. Survey results were categorized into five major areas of interest: Profile of the Respondents, Course Description Information, Faculty Involvement in Capstone Education, Project Information, and Industrial Involvement in Capstone Education. Graphs provide the results of responses to survey questions.

A Survey of Capstone Engineering Courses in North America

In recent years the SIGITE community has invested significant effort into developing IT accreditation standards. New draft general and program specific accreditation criteria were recently created. The Brigham Young University IT program is undergoing an accreditation visit in the near future as a pilot program. Although the IT criteria have not yet been approved by ABET they have been used by the Brigham Young University program in preparing for accreditation and will be considered by the accreditation evaluators in the accreditation visit. This paper will describe the experience of preparing for an ABET IT accreditation visit using the draft standards. Issues of continuous improvement, assessment and accreditation documentation will be discussed. Methods for collecting and presenting accreditation data will be presented. The selection of program objectives related to institution objectives is discussed, as is the link between course outcomes and program outcomes and objectives. The linkage between accreditation criteria and the model curriculum is also discussed. This work follows on from previous work that has been reported elsewhere. Thus there is some overlap with previous papers by one or more of the authors, as well as new work.

ABET accreditation with IT criteria

Over the last few years EAC and TAC ABET-accredited programs have converted their accreditation requirements to an outcomes-oriented approach rather than a topic-hours approach. CAC-ABET is now following suit for computer-oriented programs. Information Technology programs seeking to accredit through CAC have a few special challenges relating to several factors changing in recent years as the Computer-Science Accreditation Board (CSAB) has evolved into CAC and IT has been created. This paper describes methods developed for a four-year IT program to pursue accreditation using new CAC guidelines and new accreditation requirements and to create and set up appropriate feedback mechanisms for continuous quality improvement, while considering the several new factors related to accrediting in this new and constantly evolving discipline. Key issues in creating the appropriate structure for accreditation include setting goals related to institutional and college goals, choosing measurable outcomes, relating outcomes to teaching, measuring outcomes and using outcomes to modify both program structure and even to modify goals and outcomes. A significant challenge for all such programs is measuring the outcomes graduates of the program have achieved. How do you measure the outcomes a new discipline achieves with its graduates? Many programs have been and still are in transition. How do you obtain credible feedback as to whether the program meets the defined objectives especially if the standards are still evolving? How does a program use this feedback to modify the program and the objectives so that changes add value to future graduates? CAC programs have traditionally also had a “model curriculum” which, while not officially part of the accreditation criteria, creates expectations for computer-oriented programs. This paper will discuss how these key issues are related and present organizational mechanisms for completing these requirements.

David K. Anthony

Papers

A Survey of Capstone Engineering Courses in North America

ABET accreditation with IT criteria

Outcomes Oriented Abet Accreditation: Mechanisms For Review And Feedback