Situated cognition theory suggests that representations of concepts are products of the environment wherein we learn and apply concepts. This research builds on situated cognition by investigating how concepts are tangible to a professional engineering environment.
The tangibility of concepts in relation to social and material contexts was defined and explored in this study. Specifically, the conceptual representations of structural loads were examined within workplace and academic environments.
A researcher conducted ethnographic fieldwork at a private engineering firm and in undergraduate engineering courses. Data sources from this fieldwork included the ethnographer's participant‐observation field notes, formal and informal interviews, and artifact documentation.
Findings from this study described how academic representations of structural loads are more or less tangible to the social and material contexts of engineering practice. Representations documented in the workplace were found to be tangible to (1) real‐world conditions, (2) project/stakeholder constraints, and (3) engineering tools. Conversely, representations documented in the courses studied exhibited various degrees of tangibility to none, some, or all of these three traits.
These findings explicitly identify the ways in which representations of structural loads differ across academic and workplace environments and how these differences may contribute to the education–practice gap. Specific suggestions for making academic representations more tangible to workplace environments are provided based on findings from in the workplace, previous engineering education literature, and best practices observed in the courses studied. Future research considerations and the value of ethnographic methodology to situated cognition theory are also discussed.
