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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Making expert cognitive processes visible: planning and preliminary analysis in theoretical physics research
Many of the activities and cognitive processes that physicists use while solving problems are "invisible" to students, which can hinder their acquisition of important expert-like skills. Whereas the detailed calculations performed by researchers are often published in journals and textbooks, other activities such as those undertaken while planning how to approach a problem are rarely discussed in published research. Hence, these activities are especially hidden from students. To better understand how physicists solve problems in their professional research, we leveraged the framework of cognitive task analysis to conduct semi-structured interviews with theoretical physicists (N=11). Here we elucidate the role of planning and preliminary analysis in theorists' work. Theorists described using a variety of activities in order to decide if their project was doable while also generating possible solution paths. These actions included doing cursory calculations, reflecting on previous knowledge, gaining intuition and understanding by studying prior work, and reproducing previous results. We found that theorists typically did not pursue projects unless they had a clear idea of what the outcome of their project would be, or at least knew that they would be able to make progress on the problem. Thus, this preliminary design and analysis phase was highly important for theorists despite being largely hidden from students. We conclude by suggesting potential ways to incorporate our findings into the classroom to give students more numerous opportunities to engage in these expert-like practices.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1846321
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10409048
- Editor(s):
- Frank, Brian W.; Jones, Dyan L.; Ryan, Qing X.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Physics Education Research Conference 2022
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 469 to 474
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1119/perc.2022.pr.Verostek
