WHAT WE LEARN FROM EXPERTS ABOUT ENQUIRY WHEN WE ENGAGE IN PROBLEM SOLVING

DS 82: Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE15), Great Expectations: Design Teaching, Research & Enterprise, Loughborough, UK, 03-04.09.2015

Year: 2015
Editor: Guy Bingham, Darren Southee, John McCardle, Ahmed Kovacevic, Erik Bohemia, Brian Parkinson
Author: Haupt, Grietjie
Series: E&PDE
Institution: University of Pretoria, South Africa
Section: Collaboration
Page(s): 062-068
ISBN: 978-1-904670-62-9

Abstract

This paper outlines a small-scale design-based research project in progress that attempts (a) to understand the use of enquiry during the early phases of the design process from an extended cognition perspective and (b) to synthesise such enquiry behaviour with broad types of problems. The is to draw implications for engineering education curriculum design in general, and for professional development of mining engineering at the University of Pretoria in particular. The first phase of the project entails defining a suitable theoretical framework encompassing design disciplines and levels of expertise to examine and develop design behaviour. Extended cognition, approached as an information-processing system, serves as a theoretical framework. The second phase, informing the third and dominant phase discussed in this paper, comprised empirical protocol studies on expert teams from three diverse domains, namely architecture, mechanical engineering and industrial design. The methodology and results were published elsewhere and are not part of this paper. The third phase, involves the beginning of a process of mapping extended enquiry onto extended cognition and problem-solving models accepted in both engineering industry and educational contexts. Preliminary recommendations are proposed integratively for the implementation phase of the project.

Keywords: Engineering education, design cognition, enquiry, problem solving, workplace

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