2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Ill-structured problems are problems that are complex and open-ended in their design and as such they do not have a prescribed solution. They are generally more representative of the situations engineers face post-degree, in the “real world”. As these types of problems are integrated into college engineering classrooms, it is important to consider how the learning styles of the faculty and students involved may impact this problem solving process, and if this is similar or different to that of engineering professionals. Specifically, for faculty, their personal learning basis may impact the implementation and design of such problems within the curricula. Similarly, engineering students’ range of learning styles may influence how they solve or learn to solve design problems. Finally, engineering professionals’ learning styles may relate to the problem solving processes and timelines seen in their professions, but may be different from those seen in the classroom. This research thus seeks to better understand the differences in students, faculty and professionals’ learning styles, and how their learning styles relate to the steps and time taken in solving an ill-structured engineering problem.

As part of a larger study 60 undergraduate students, academic faculty, and practicing engineers within Civil Engineering were asked to solve an ill-structured problem during which they were required to verbalize what they were doing. Prior to doing this participants were asked to complete an Index of Learning Style (ILS) survey. Recordings of their verbalization were then transcribed and coded to divide the problem solving process into steps. Analysis of this data suggests there are some differences in learning styles between undergraduate students, academic faculty, and practicing engineers. Moreover, trends suggest that certain components of a participant’s learning styles are predictors of how much time a participant will take completing different steps of the problem solving process. This has implications for the teaching of such problems, since learning styles are likely to affect how a faculty teaches; this also has implications for how students learn the problem solving process. More research is needed to understand what role based factors and experiences may result in these differences as well as how such differences may not be currently represented in curriculum design and timing. This includes how ill-structured problems in the classroom may or may not not accurately represent professional engineering problem solving processes.