2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This research paper details a study investigating the relation between spatial visualization skills and design problem-solving for undergraduate engineering students. Design is outlined as one of the seven attributes that engineering students must demonstrate prior to their graduation as set out through the ABET guidelines. It is important to understand the factors that contribute to design capability in order to achieve this learning goal. Design problems by their nature are cognitive tasks and as such require problem solvers to draw both on learned knowledge and pertinent cognitive abilities. In the context of engineering design problem solving, spatial visualization is one such cognitive ability. Previous research has demonstrated a link between spatial visualization and design. This work aims to advance on that research by exploring how visualization relates to the creativity of designs produced by engineering students.

There were three phases to data collection for this research. In the first phase, 127 undergraduate engineering students completed four spatial tests. In the second phase 101 students returned to complete three design tasks. This paper will focus on one of these tasks, the Ping Pong problem where individuals are asked to design a ping pong launcher to hit a target from a given distance at a specific height. A purposive sample of 9 freshmen students were selected to engage in a think aloud protocol during the problem based on their spatial visualization skills (high, mid and low). This think aloud protocol was used to develop design timelines for each of the 9 participants. The third phase of data collection involved an Adaptive Comparative Judgement (ACJ) session where engineering educators were asked to evaluate the Ping Pong problem solutions of all 101 participants based on creativity. This information was used to identify where the 9 participants with high, mid and low visualization were positioned in terms of creativity amongst the larger group.

Through analysis of the design timelines and creativity identified from the ACJ session, initial insights indicate that there may be an association between the spatial skills of students and the creativity of their design solutions. These insights will be discussed relative to their potential influence on engineering education, specifically in developing design capability.