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1. BOARD # 441: RFE: Trust but Verify: The Use of Intuition in Engineering Problem Solving

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--55821  

   Martin, Kaela; Miskioglu, Elif; Singh, Anu; Carberry, Adam (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   We all have moments when we are struck by a “gut feeling” or a “sixth sense” about something. It could pertain to a relationship or task at work. That sense can be broadly termed intuition. Intuitive decisionmaking is an essential characteristic of individuals who have attained a certain level of expertise. The development of expertise and intuition are heavily influenced by experience. Engineering intuition is defined as an experience-informed skill subconsciously leveraged in problem solving by engineering practitioners when under pressure from constraints such as lack of time. Practicing engineers use and develop intuition regularly on-the-job, but the use of intuition is often discouraged in undergraduate education. The disconnect between intuition’s use in engineering practice and in education, coupled with our limited knowledge of the relationship between intuition, expertise, and experience, presents an important gap in our existing understanding of engineering problem solving and future workforce preparation. Through this Research in the Formation of Engineers (RFE) grant, we seek to address this gap by examining the application of intuition by engineering practitioners to generate knowledge that promotes professional formation and development of a stronger engineering workforce. 

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2. Examining the Literacy Practices of Electrical Engineers: A Comparative Case Study

   Green, T.; Wilson-Lopez, A.; Minichiello, A. (April 2019, American Education Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting)

   This study, part of a larger research project focused on disciplinary literacy within engineering (Authors, 2018), is a comparative case study of the literacy practices of two electrical engineers. The goal of this comparative case study was to understand how electrical engineers read, write, and evaluate multi-representational texts in the context of their professional lives. We used the findings from this study to construct a model of disciplinary literacy in electrical engineering, whose purpose is to prepare students for the electrical engineering workforce by teaching them to interpret and produce texts using authentic disciplinary frameworks. This paper examines the literacy practices of two electrical engineers to answer the following research questions: (1) What texts do the electrical engineers read and write? (2) What disciplinary frameworks do they use to read and write different texts? (3) How do engineers use internet searches to locate and evaluate information? (4) What role does argumentation have with respect to their literacy practices? 

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3. Update on is it Rocket Science or Brain Science? Developing an Approach to Measure Engineering Intuition

   Miskioglu, Elif; Carberry, Adam; Martin, Kaela; Kavale, Sanjeev; Bolton, Caroline; Aaron, Caitlyn; Roth, Madeline (August 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Engineering problem solving has become more complex and reliant on technology making engineering judgement an increasingly important and essential skill for engineers. Educators need to ensure that students do not become rote learners with little ability to critically analyze the result of solutions. This suggests that greater focus should be placed on developing engineering judgement, specifically engineering intuition, in our students who will be the future engineering workforce. This project is focused on the following four research questions: 1) What are practicing professional engineers’ perceptions of discipline specific intuition and its use in the workplace? 2) Where does intuition manifest in expert engineer decision-making and problem-solving processes? 3) How does the motivation and identity of practicing professional engineers relate to discipline-specific intuition? 4) What would an instrument designed to validly and reliably measure engineering intuition look like? Literature from the fields of nursing (Smith), management (Simon), and expertise development (Dreyfus) suggest intuition plays a role in both decision making and becoming an expert. This literature is used to support our definition of engineering intuition which is defined as the ability to: 1) assess the feasibility of a solution or response, and 2) predict outcomes and/or options within an engineering scenario (Authors). This paper serves as an update on the progress of our work to date. The first three research questions have been addressed through interviews with engineering practitioners at various stages in their careers, from early career to retired. Emergent findings have allowed us to construct a modified definition of engineering intuition, while also identifying related constructs. In Spring 2021, we created and tested an instrument to measure intuition. This instrument was re-deployed in Fall 2021. Preliminary results from the project’s qualitative and quantitative efforts will be presented. Our ultimate aim of this project is to inform the creation of classroom practices that improve students’ ability to develop, recognize, and improve their own engineering intuition. Select References: Authors (2020). Dreyfus, Stuart E., and Hubert L. Dreyfus. A five-stage model of the mental activities involved in directed skill acquisition. No. ORC-80-2. California Univ Berkeley Operations Research Center, 1980. Smith, Anita. "Exploring the legitimacy of intuition as a form of nursing knowledge." Nursing Standard (through 2013) 23.40 (2009): 35. Simon, Herbert A. "Making management decisions: The role of intuition and emotion." Academy of Management Perspectives 1.1 (1987): 57-64. 

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4. Work-in-Progress: Novel Ethnographic Investigations of Engineering Work Practices.

   Jesiek, B.; Johri, A.; Brozina, C.; Korte, R. (July 2020, Proceedings of ASEE 2020)

   null (Ed.)

   There remains a lack of research on professional engineering work practices [1]. This deficiency is troubling because engineering education is organized and reorganized based on claims and assumptions about what professional engineering work is or will be. Without well-researched and trustworthy representations of practice, it is questionable whether engineering educators can adequately prepare future engineers for workplace realities. Although it is important that the preparation of future engineers not be tied solely to the workforce, there is a significant “disconnect between engineers in practice and engineers in academe” [2, p. 18]. If educators want to prepare students for professional success – including by assuming roles as future leaders and change agents – concrete images of engineering work are critical resources for rethinking engineering education [1]. The need for such resources is even more urgent given ongoing changes to engineering work under the forces of globalization, new organizational configurations, and new technologies of communication, design, and production. More research is needed to document images that are often discounted by students and even faculty, i.e., portrayals of engineering practice that emphasize its non-technical and non-calculative sides, as well as its non-individual aspects [3-4]. The aim of this work-in-progress paper is to introduce an exploratory project that will test innovative approaches to data collection and analysis for rapidly generating new knowledge about engineering practice. Traditionally, engineering practices have primarily been studied using in-depth ethnographic field research, requiring researchers to embed themselves as participant observers in the workplace. Yet technical work increasingly involves open workspaces and geographically distributed teams, frequent changes in job roles and team composition, and many layers of digital abstraction and collaboration. It thus may not be feasible or optimal to perform on-site research for extended periods of time. The main aim of this paper is to introduce method innovations for conducting field research which can potentially generate higher quality data more efficiently. Before doing so, we briefly overview prior research on engineering practice. 

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5. Work-in-Progress: Novel Ethnographic Investigations of Engineering Work Practices

   Jesiek, B.; Johri, A.; Brozina, C.; Korte, R. (June 2020, Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Virtual Conference, 2020.)

   There remains a lack of research on professional engineering work practices [1]. This deficiency is troubling because engineering education is organized and reorganized based on claims and assumptions about what professional engineering work is or will be. Without well-researched and trustworthy representations of practice, it is questionable whether engineering educators can adequately prepare future engineers for workplace realities. Although it is important that the preparation of future engineers not be tied solely to the workforce, there is a significant “disconnect between engineers in practice and engineers in academe” [2, p. 18]. If educators want to prepare students for professional success – including by assuming roles as future leaders and change agents – concrete images of engineering work are critical resources for rethinking engineering education [1]. The need for such resources is even more urgent given ongoing changes to engineering work under the forces of globalization, new organizational configurations, and new technologies of communication, design, and production. More research is needed to document images that are often discounted by students and even faculty, i.e., portrayals of engineering practice that emphasize its non-technical and non-calculative sides, as well as its non-individual aspects [3-4]. The aim of this work-in-progress paper is to introduce an exploratory project that will test innovative approaches to data collection and analysis for rapidly generating new knowledge about engineering practice. Traditionally, engineering practices have primarily been studied using in-depth ethnographic field research, requiring researchers to embed themselves as participant observers in the workplace. Yet technical work increasingly involves open workspaces and geographically distributed teams, frequent changes in job roles and team composition, and many layers of digital abstraction and collaboration. It thus may not be feasible or optimal to perform on-site research for extended periods of time. The main aim of this paper is to introduce method innovations for conducting field research which can potentially generate higher quality data more efficiently. Before doing so, we briefly overview prior research on engineering practice. 

   more » « less