2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 204: Barriers and Supports to Divergent Thinking in Engineering Problem-Solving: An Engineering Student Project Experience

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

Engineering is a field of innovation for solving complex challenges. Creative solutions, however, require divergent thinking to consider alternatives rather than converging on a single correct solution. Few studies have focused on the impact of engineering education, structures, resources, and environments on students' abilities to explore and divergent options. While often considered during design concept generation, divergent thinking can be pursued throughout engineering projects when building an understanding of a problem, gathering information and considering stakeholders, choosing problem solving strategies, evaluating possible solutions, and foreseeing implications of decisions.

In order to understand how divergent thinking occurs within engineering problem solving, we investigated engineering students' reported project experiences. Data were collected from 20 mechanical engineering students using a flexible, semi-structured interview protocol and analyzed based on themes regarding structures and environments surrounding projects. This analysis examines one student’s description of their experiences through narrative storytelling to identify divergent thinking (or barriers to it) as they encountered it. The narrative describes this participant’s experiences and illustrates the ways in which the factors surrounding their project influenced their consideration of multiple perspectives and options.

We identify varied influences on the occurrence of, or barriers to, divergence during engineering processes. These include mentor influence, knowledge and skills of the participant, access to others’ views, which support or inhibit considering alternatives. Specifics from project and course structures, requirements to explicitly encourage exploration, and research and material resources available, such as documentation, databases, and equipment and facilities, directly affect engagement in divergent thinking. This suggests attention to structural support for divergence may be effective in encouraging divergent practices.

The narrative serves as a tool for educators, students, and practitioners to consider and understand the importance of exposure to varied viewpoints and structuring projects to tangibly support engineers in exploring alternatives as critical in promoting divergent thinking practices in engineering for more creative and impactful outcomes.

Authors

Shannon M Clancy http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2779-0746 University of Michigan [biography]

Dr. Shannon M. Clancy (she/they) is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. She earned all of her degrees in Mechanical Engineering: B.S. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), M.S. from the University of Michigan, and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (U-M). They also received an Engineering Education Research Certificate during their time at U-M.

Her research interests include front-end design practices, sociotechnical knowledge and skills, and queer student experiences in engineering. They use qualitative methods and fields across engineering design, psychology, learning sciences, education, and STEM education to dive deeply into these topics, understanding the how’s and why’s of engineers’ experiences, decision-making, and sharing their stories.

Dr. Clancy is motivated by their passion for and experiences with equity-minded teaching and holistic mentorship of students as people and professionals. She particularly enjoys intertwining engineering technical practices and social implications to prepare students to become socially responsible engineers. She seeks to reimagine who can be an engineer, what engineering is, and the impact engineering has on society for a more equitable world.
Dr. Shanna R. Daly http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4698-2973 University of Michigan [biography]

Shanna Daly is an Associate Professor in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. She has a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Dayton and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University.
Dr. Colleen M. Seifert University of Michigan [biography]

Colleen M. Seifert is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Michigan. She received her Ph.D. in psychology at Yale University. She was an ASEE postdoctoral fellow at the University of California â€“ San Diego

Download paper (1.81 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session