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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. 

As engineering students transition from their undergraduate education into their first full-time roles within industry, they are often facing a two year induction period as a result of a Theory-to-Practice gap (Gao & Rhinehart, 2004; Rhinehart, 2019, Rhinehart 2015). The gap between engineering students and industry practitioners can be the result of many different factors: students learning complex and fundamental concepts through simple problems, students having difficulty combining knowledge from different courses to solve realistic scenarios, or the lack of time students have to master these concepts (Rhinehart, 2015). This two year induction period causes problems for the company, the individuals, and for higher education, so it is important to identify areas where this gap exists and how it can potentially be mitigated. One area worthy of investigation related to the Theory to Practice gap is the field of process safety education due to its significant impact on professional practice. This pilot study sought to gain an initial understanding of what differences may exist between how experienced industry practitioners and undergraduate engineering students approach process safety judgments. We used this data as a means for determining if approaches to process safety judgments may be an area related to where this gap has been observed. As part of the pilot study, we conducted interviews with both students and practitioners where we provided them with a list of competing criteria that are relevant to process safety judgements such as time, production, and relationships, and then asked them to describe their approach to making process safety judgments given five specific scenarios. We found that industry practitioners and students were both relying on previous experience when describing their approaches to process safety judgments. Practitioners related the scenarios to prior work place events, while students connected them to problems they learned about in class, internships, or retail jobs. A noted difference between industry practitioners and students was that industry practitioners also described being heavily influenced by relationships with co-workers, superiors, and families when approaching these judgments, which seemed to be lacking in the student responses. Past process safety incidents, as documented by the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), have shown that the dynamics of relationships can have an impact on judgment processes which lead to detrimental results. The findings from this study provide additional support for the role of relationships in process safety judgments and the need for process safety instruction that addresses this role. Moving forward, it will be important to expose undergraduate students to the role of relationships in judgment-making processes so that we can better prepare them to navigate the complexities of process safety judgments. 

As engineering students transition from their undergraduate education into their first full-time roles within industry, they are often facing a two year induction period as a result of a Theory-to-Practice gap (Gao & Rhinehart, 2004; Rhinehart, 2019, Rhinehart 2015). The gap between engineering students and industry practitioners can be the result of many different factors: students learning complex and fundamental concepts through simple problems, students having difficulty combining knowledge from different courses to solve realistic scenarios, or the lack of time students have to master these concepts (Rhinehart, 2015). This two year induction period causes problems for the company, the individuals, and for higher education, so it is important to identify areas where this gap exists and how it can potentially be mitigated. One area worthy of investigation related to the Theory to Practice gap is the field of process safety education due to its significant impact on professional practice. This pilot study sought to gain an initial understanding of what differences may exist between how experienced industry practitioners and undergraduate engineering students approach process safety judgments. We used this data as a means for determining if approaches to process safety judgments may be an area related to where this gap has been observed. As part of the pilot study, we conducted interviews with both students and practitioners where we provided them with a list of competing criteria that are relevant to process safety judgements such as time, production, and relationships, and then asked them to describe their approach to making process safety judgments given five specific scenarios. We found that industry practitioners and students were both relying on previous experience when describing their approaches to process safety judgments. Practitioners related the scenarios to prior work place events, while students connected them to problems they learned about in class, internships, or retail jobs. A noted difference between industry practitioners and students was that industry practitioners also described being heavily influenced by relationships with co-workers, superiors, and families when approaching these judgments, which seemed to be lacking in the student responses. Past process safety incidents, as documented by the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), have shown that the dynamics of relationships can have an impact on judgment processes which lead to detrimental results. The findings from this study provide additional support for the role of relationships in process safety judgments and the need for process safety instruction that addresses this role. Moving forward, it will be important to expose undergraduate students to the role of relationships in judgment-making processes so that we can better prepare them to navigate the complexities of process safety judgments. 

As engineering students transition from their undergraduate education into their first full-time roles within industry, they are often facing a two year induction period as a result of a Theory-to-Practice gap (Gao & Rhinehart, 2004; Rhinehart, 2019, Rhinehart 2015). The gap between engineering students and industry practitioners can be the result of many different factors: students learning complex and fundamental concepts through simple problems, students having difficulty combining knowledge from different courses to solve realistic scenarios, or the lack of time students have to master these concepts (Rhinehart, 2015). This two year induction period causes problems for the company, the individuals, and for higher education, so it is important to identify areas where this gap exists and how it can potentially be mitigated. One area worthy of investigation related to the Theory to Practice gap is the field of process safety education due to its significant impact on professional practice. This pilot study sought to gain an initial understanding of what differences may exist between how experienced industry practitioners and undergraduate engineering students approach process safety judgments. We used this data as a means for determining if approaches to process safety judgments may be an area related to where this gap has been observed. As part of the pilot study, we conducted interviews with both students and practitioners where we provided them with a list of competing criteria that are relevant to process safety judgements such as time, production, and relationships, and then asked them to describe their approach to making process safety judgments given five specific scenarios. We found that industry practitioners and students were both relying on previous experience when describing their approaches to process safety judgments. Practitioners related the scenarios to prior work place events, while students connected them to problems they learned about in class, internships, or retail jobs. A noted difference between industry practitioners and students was that industry practitioners also described being heavily influenced by relationships with co-workers, superiors, and families when approaching these judgments, which seemed to be lacking in the student responses. Past process safety incidents, as documented by the United States Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), have shown that the dynamics of relationships can have an impact on judgment processes which lead to detrimental results. The findings from this study provide additional support for the role of relationships in process safety judgments and the need for process safety instruction that addresses this role. Moving forward, it will be important to expose undergraduate students to the role of relationships in judgment-making processes so that we can better prepare them to navigate the complexities of process safety judgments. 

Faculty members are instrumental in the delivery of process safety curriculum and key stakeholders in efforts to improve process safety education. This study evaluated faculty’s view of the relevance of specific criteria in process safety decisions and whether their criteria prioritization changed after exposure to a group play-through of a digital process safety game. Faculty found relevance in the proposed criteria and had relatively stable prioritization of these criteria both before and after game play. 

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. 

CONTEXT - Judging the feasibility of solutions has become an increasingly important engineering skill as engineering problem solving has become more complex and technology-dependent. Engineering education must take care to foster engineering judgement in our students to produce robust problem solvers primed to critically evaluate and interpret output. Our work uses expertise development and dual-cognition processing theories (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1980; Smith, 2009; Simon, 1987) to frame such engineering judgement as engineering intuition or the ability to assess the outcome of an engineering solution and predict outcomes within an engineering scenario (Miskioğlu and Martin, 2019). PURPOSE OR GOAL - Our overarching goal is to create classroom interventions that explicitly recognize and enhance the development of engineering intuition. Accomplishing this goal requires a means of measuring engineering intuition before and after such interventions. This paper discusses our process to develop the Predicting and Evaluating Engineering Problem Solving (PEEPS) tool for measuring engineering intuition. APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS - PEEPS is built directly on our prior qualitative work with practicing engineers, which revealed the construct of engineering intuition (Aaron et al., 2020). The emergent findings were combined with questions adapted from the Concept Assessment Tool for Statics (Steif & Dantzler, 2005) to create a preliminary survey assessing intuition. Additional items asked participants to assess their level of confidence in their answers. The survey was designed such that the statics problems could be switched out for other forms of engineering problems. Think-aloud sessions were used to check face validity and usability prior to full deployment in Spring 2021. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES - This study details the process used to create PEEPS. Modifications were made following 19 think aloud sessions. The initial deployment in Spring 2021 resulted in 88 completed responses with responses primarily coming from white, male, aerospace engineering students who had previously performed well in their statics courses. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY - This work showcases a new survey designed to assess the engineering intuition of engineering students. Next steps include expanding the work to a more diverse sample of engineering students, further validity checks of the instrument, and pairing the instrument with newly created educational interventions designed to better foster engineering intuition development in students. KEYWORDS - engineering judgement, problem solving, survey development 

CONTEXT - Judging the feasibility of solutions has become an increasingly important engineering skill as engineering problem solving has become more complex and technology-dependent. Engineering education must take care to foster engineering judgement in our students to produce robust problem solvers primed to critically evaluate and interpret output. Our work uses expertise development and dual-cognition processing theories (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1980; Smith, 2009; Simon, 1987) to frame such engineering judgement as engineering intuition or the ability to assess the outcome of an engineering solution and predict outcomes within an engineering scenario (Miskioğlu and Martin, 2019). PURPOSE OR GOAL - Our overarching goal is to create classroom interventions that explicitly recognize and enhance the development of engineering intuition. Accomplishing this goal requires a means of measuring engineering intuition before and after such interventions. This paper discusses our process to develop the Predicting and Evaluating Engineering Problem Solving (PEEPS) tool for measuring engineering intuition. APPROACH OR METHODOLOGY/METHODS - PEEPS is built directly on our prior qualitative work with practicing engineers, which revealed the construct of engineering intuition (Aaron et al., 2020). The emergent findings were combined with questions adapted from the Concept Assessment Tool for Statics (Steif & Dantzler, 2005) to create a preliminary survey assessing intuition. Additional items asked participants to assess their level of confidence in their answers. The survey was designed such that the statics problems could be switched out for other forms of engineering problems. Think-aloud sessions were used to check face validity and usability prior to full deployment in Spring 2021. ACTUAL OR ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES - This study details the process used to create PEEPS. Modifications were made following 19 think aloud sessions. The initial deployment in Spring 2021 resulted in 88 completed responses with responses primarily coming from white, male, aerospace engineering students who had previously performed well in their statics courses. CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS/SUMMARY - This work showcases a new survey designed to assess the engineering intuition of engineering students. Next steps include expanding the work to a more diverse sample of engineering students, further validity checks of the instrument, and pairing the instrument with newly created educational interventions designed to better foster engineering intuition development in students. KEYWORDS - engineering judgement, problem solving, survey development 

This Research Category - Full Paper presents initial emergent themes from our quest to understand the construct of intuition. Our work uses theories of expertise development and dual-cognitive processing frameworks to provide a theoretical grounding to define discipline-specific intuition. We hypothesize that intuition can be observed in disciplinary experts through discussions of experience and decision-making processes. Interviews were conducted with professionals in three fields - engineering, nursing, and business management - that engage intuition in decision-making. A comparative analysis of emergent themes is presented to understand similarities and differences in use and definition across these disciplines. Parallel grounded theory and critical incident technique approaches were used to identify perceptions and incidents of intuition. Results suggest that intuition can be defined as a "sense of knowing" that is context specific and at least partly attributable to experience. Inclusion of multiple fields and comparisons across disciplines form the foundation for our future work focusing solely on engineering intuition.