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1. "Exploring Other People’s Mind, Exploring Your Own Mind”—A Story of Divergent Thinking from Mechanical Engineering Practice

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--42775  

   Murphy, L; Makhlouf, T; Daly, S; Seifert, C (August 2023, Annual Conference for the American Society for Engineering Education)

   Divergent thinking is the process of exploring many options and perspectives and is a key part of effective and inclusive engineering outcomes. In engineering education, divergent exploration is often applied within idea generation; however, many other stages in engineering projects may benefit from divergent exploration, such as defining problems, identifying stakeholders, selecting problem solving approaches, and understanding potential implications of engineering decisions. Professional engineers often struggle to identify and manage diverse perspectives, and little is known about the practice of divergent exploration in engineering projects. To investigate, we interviewed a mechanical engineer about her exploration practices in a past professional project. From her striking examples of divergent thinking and barriers to its practice, we constructed a narrative-based educational tool for students, educators, and practitioners. The engineer’s firsthand experiences demonstrate that to think divergently, engineers must understand system constraints, explore widely, seek information from many sources, take risks, seek varied perspectives, and explore multiple methods to solve problems. 

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2. Developing an Interview Protocol to Elicit Engineering Students’ Divergent Thinking Experiences

   Clancy, S. (January 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   As problems become more complex, global, and interdisciplinary, engineers need to develop novel solutions and utilize resources, information, and tools in strategic and creative ways. Divergent thinking describes a process where multiple options, pathways, alternatives, or ideas are developed. For engineering students, divergent thinking can facilitate flexibility and expand opportunities considered when solving problems. To develop divergent thinking skills in engineering, we must understand how it is (and is not) facilitated in current engineering education experiences. Current pedagogy and resources available in engineering education on divergent thinking are limited. Thus, our research focused on exploring educational experiences in which students felt they considered divergent thinking. In this paper, we describe the iterative development of an interview protocol to elicit student experiences related to opportunities for divergent thinking. From the initial round of piloting, we found student awareness of divergent thinking was limited. Our findings highlight the need to structure questions in ways that align with students’ existing understandings of their engineering experiences. Our team made modifications to the protocol to address this, including using accessible terms to describe divergent thinking, asking students to describe one example project they remembered well, and. focusing questions within one step of the project selected by the student as most relevant to their exploration of alternatives. This iterative development of the protocol was successful in eliciting divergent thinking experiences across their work. 

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3. Exploring the Space in Context: Factors Impacting Engineering Students’ Divergent Thinking during Projects

   Clancy, S M; Daly, S R; Seifert, C M (April 2026, International journal of engineering education)

   Engineering education and training often focus on convergent thinking processes to guide decisions using formal and analytical methods. However, divergent thinking processes such as considering multiple options, are necessary before making a choice, providing opportunities for improved approaches and innovative outcomes. Divergent thinking promotes flexibility through considering broader and more diverse perspectives and navigating ambiguity present in real world engineering projects. However, while divergent thinking is critical to engineering work, it receives little emphasis and understanding. Thus, our study focused on identifying facilitators and barriers to students’ divergent thinking in project experiences. We interviewed 20 mechanical engineering undergraduate and high school students about their divergent exploration during extended engineering projects. We used two different narrative inquiry methods to understand intersecting barriers and facilitators and provide in-depth examples of participants’ perspectives navigating divergent thinking in specific engineering contexts and structures. Our findings identify various crucial factors, notably project structure and requirements, organizational culture, and mentorship direction (authority and guidance) as impediments and promoters of divergent thinking in engineering student projects. The findings inform pedagogical approaches and engineering education structures and environments to foster divergent thought, challenging what engineering work can include, how engineering work is conducted, and who participates in engineering. 

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4. Tensions in Applying a Design-Thinking Approach to Address Barriers to Increasing Diversity and Inclusion in a Large, Legacy Engineering Program

   Eddington, S. M.; Zoltowski, C. B.; Brightman, A. O.; Corple, D.; Buzzanell, P. M. (June 2019, ASEE annual conference & exposition proceedings)

   We are focusing on three interconnected issues that negatively impact engineering disciplinary cultures: (1) diversity and inclusion issues that continue to plague engineering programs; (2) lack of adequate preparation for professional practices; (3) and exclusionary engineering disciplinary cultures that privilege technical knowledge over other forms of knowledge [1]. Although much effort has been devoted to these issues, traditional strategic and problem-solving orientations have not resulted in deep cultural transformations in many engineering programs. We posit that these three issues that are wicked problems. Wicked problems are ambiguous, interrelated and require complex problem-scoping and solutions that are not amenable with traditional and linear strategic planning and problem-solving orientations [2]. As design thinking provides an approach to solve complex problems that occur in organizational cultures [3], we argue that these wicked problems of engineering education cultures might be best understood and resolved through design thinking. As Elsbach and Stigliani contend, “the effective use of design thinking tools in organizations had a profound effect on organizational culture” [3, p. 2279]. However, not all organizational cultures support design thinking approaches well. Despite increasing calls to teach design as a central part of professional formation (e.g., ABET, National Academy of Engineers, etc.), many engineering programs, especially larger, legacy programs have not embraced fundamental design thinking [4-5] strategies or values [6-7]. According to Godfrey and Parker, many engineering cultures are characterized by linear epistemologies, “black and white” approaches to problem solving, and strategic “top down” ways of designing [8]. In contrast, design thinking approaches are characterized by ways of thinking and designing that prioritize prototyping, multiple stakeholder perspectives, and iterative problem-solving to address complex problems. In this paper, we examine the effectiveness of design thinking as a tool to address wicked problems in engineering education cultures, and the role of engineering culture itself in shaping the application and effectiveness of design thinking. More specially, we evaluate the role of design thinking in seeking cultural transformation at a School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Purdue University. We analyze interviews of members of the School after they participated in six design thinking sessions. Our previous research explored the effect of design thinking sessions on participant understanding of diversity and inclusion in biomedical engineering [9]. Herein, we explore participant experiences of design thinking sessions toward cultural change efforts regarding diversity and inclusion (D&I) within professional formation in ECE. We identified three tensions (push/pull dynamics of contradictions) that emerged from the participants’ experiences in the design sessions [10]. We conclude by discussing our emerging insights into the effectiveness of design thinking toward cultural change efforts in engineering. 

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5. Results from Understanding and Scaffolding the Productive Beginnings of Engineering Judgment in Undergraduate Students (RFE)

   Johnson, Aaron W; Johnson, Oluwakemi; Swenson, Jessica (June 2026, American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference)

   As engineers design new solutions to problems or create mathematical models of physical phenomena, they have to make numerous decisions about the importance or relevance of different criteria, how to model particular forces and elements, and if their calculations or model are a good representation of the real world. These decisions are made with engineering judgment. Students, as novice engineers, need to practice making judgments in order to develop this expertise. This design-based research project posits that practice with engineering judgment should begin in students’ first engineering science course through solving an open-ended, ill-defined problem (called OEMPs). Examining 34 interviews conducted with statics and mechanics of materials students, we found four major categories of the productive beginnings of judgment: making assumptions, assessing reasonableness, overriding a calculated answer, and using technology tools. Currently, we are attempting to develop a survey to quantitatively measure students’ engineering judgement. We are also examining interviews with five instructors who have assigned OEMPs to characterize the ways they elicit, notice, and respond to their students’ engineering judgment. An implication of this work includes aiding instructors in being able to recognize the productive beginnings of engineering judgment in their students’ thinking. Our work also provides guidelines for designing, scaffolding, assigning, and facilitating OEMPs in engineering science courses. 

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