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The NSF Research Initiation in Engineering Formation (RIEF) project described in this paper is grounded in our understanding of the realities of professional practices. Engineers must be able to construct and participate in sound judgments that balance complex, competing objectives or constraints, and they must simultaneously produce recognizable engineering identities that enable them to articulate and justify those judgments to others through a variety of communication mechanisms, including writing. Consequently, the objective of our project isto investigate the ways students produce engineer identities in written artifacts through which they expect to be recognized as engineers. We divided the project into two phases: Phase 1 involving semi-structured interviews designed to conceptualize the engineering judgment process using thematic analysis; Phase 2 involving the design and dissemination of pedagogical approaches based on our results. This paper primarily reports the preliminary results of Phase 1. This project is an instrumental case study using semi-structured artifact-based interviews as the primary data source. Our semi-structured interviews are designed to focus on the ways students construct engineering judgments and produce engineer identities through their written projects. Course documents (including assignments and related material) as well as reflective field notes and analytic memos are used to provide additional contextual data. The data from this project provide a foundation for an understanding of engineering judgment that conceptualizes students as decision makers who participate in acts of engineering judgment. These judgments may be constructed individually, or constructed jointly through the interactions of multiple individuals working in teams to navigate ambiguity, uncertainty, and conflicting objectives. Moreover, our project situates engineering judgment as an interplay among several interdependent cognitive processes, and shows how the theories of identity as in interpretive lens, academic literacies, identity production, and naturalistic decision making can help to explain how undergraduate students come to view themselves as professionals capable of participating in acts of engineering judgment.
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A dramaturgical exploration of engineering judgment processes in undergraduate student writing
The objective of this full paper is to explore the interplay between engineering judgment and communication practices involved in completing an undergraduate systems engineering senior project. We view engineering judgment as an embodied process that emerges through discourse as individuals position themselves relative to both other individuals and disciplinary norms in a range of contexts. It happens, broadly, through a series of tasks and thinking processes through which students choose and formulate problems, make assumptions, select data, and adopt roles in relation to disciplinary norms in different contexts. We explore this conceptualization of engineering judgment using thematic and dramaturgical analysis of a single case. The data collected are a semi-structured 90-minute interview collected with one systems engineering senior after completion of their senior project and graduation from their degree program. These data are first coded using a thematic analysis approach, then re-analyzed using a dramaturgical approach. Our findings raise important issues about the blend of communication demands faced by practicing engineers that potentially impact the socialization of engineering students. Different communication demands require students to use different ways to navigate complexity. The varied communication forms also prompt students to view themselves as professionals with the capacity to judge and act from a position of professional authority that vary with the situational context.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1927035
- PAR ID:
- 10357581
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2021 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 9
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)In this paper, we argue that the exploration of engineering judgment in undergraduate education should be grounded at the intersection of decision making, situated cognition, and engineering identity production. In our view, engineering judgment is an embodied cognitive process that is situated in written and oral communication, involved with immediate praxis, and takes place within the contexts of standards and traditions of the engineering communities of practice. Moreover, engineering judgment is constituted as authoritative communication tasks that draw on the subject’s and audience’s common experiences and knowledge base for its clarity and persuasive power (e.g., Weedon (2019), "The role of rhetoric in engineering judgment," IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun. 62(2):165-177). The objective of this work short essay is to review the engineering education literature with the aim of synthesizing the concept of engineering judgment from theories of decision-making, identity, communities of practice, and discourse communities. Although the rationale for developing engineering judgment in undergraduate students is the complexity they will face in professional practice, engineering educators often considerably reduce the complexity of the problems students face (with learning engineering judgement or with engineering judgment in their undergraduate education?). Student work intended to train engineering judgment often prescribes goals and objectives, and demands a one-time decision, product, or solution that faculty or instructors evaluate. The evaluation process might not contain formal methods for foregrounding feedback from experience or reflecting on how the problem or decision emerges; thus, the loop from decision to upstream cognitive processes might not be closed. Consequently, in this paper, our exploration of engineering judgment is guided by the following questions: How have investigators researchers? defined engineering judgment? What are the potential limitations of existing definitions? How can existing definitions be expanded upon? What cognitive processes do students engage to make engineering judgments? How do communication tasks shape students’ engineering judgments? In what ways does engineer identity production shape students’ engineering judgments? How might a definition of engineering judgement suggest areas for improving undergraduate education?more » « less
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null (Ed.)In this paper, we argue that the exploration of engineering judgment in undergraduate education should be grounded at the intersection of decision making, situated cognition, and engineering identity production. In our view, engineering judgment is an embodied cognitive process that is situated in written and oral communication, involved with immediate praxis, and takes place within the contexts of standards and traditions of the engineering communities of practice. Moreover, engineering judgment is constituted as authoritative communication tasks that draw on the subject’s and audience’s common experiences and knowledge base for its clarity and persuasive power (e.g., Weedon (2019), "The role of rhetoric in engineering judgment," IEEE Trans. Prof. Commun. 62(2):165-177). The objective of this work short essay is to review the engineering education literature with the aim of synthesizing the concept of engineering judgment from theories of decision-making, identity, communities of practice, and discourse communities. Although the rationale for developing engineering judgment in undergraduate students is the complexity they will face in professional practice, engineering educators often considerably reduce the complexity of the problems students face (with learning engineering judgement or with engineering judgment in their undergraduate education?). Student work intended to train engineering judgment often prescribes goals and objectives, and demands a one-time decision, product, or solution that faculty or instructors evaluate. The evaluation process might not contain formal methods for foregrounding feedback from experience or reflecting on how the problem or decision emerges; thus, the loop from decision to upstream cognitive processes might not be closed. Consequently, in this paper, our exploration of engineering judgment is guided by the following questions: How have investigators researchers? defined engineering judgment? What are the potential limitations of existing definitions? How can existing definitions be expanded upon? What cognitive processes do students engage to make engineering judgments? How do communication tasks shape students’ engineering judgments? In what ways does engineer identity production shape students’ engineering judgments? How might a definition of engineering judgement suggest areas for improving undergraduate education?more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE49875.2021.9637349
