2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

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 first-hand 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.