2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Over the last several years the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) program at [added in final] has established a four-year ‘design thread’ in the curriculum. This six-course sequence utilizes a representational approach, having students frame design challenges through diagrams and drawings before starting to implement solutions. The representations students create provide eight lenses on the design process; several of these lenses capture elements of societal implications and social justice. Within the design course sequence, the third-year particularly emphasizes the larger societal and human contexts of design. A challenge in the third-year course has been having engineering students who are acculturated to quantitative and linear methods of problem solving, shift their perspectives to address complex societal topics. Such topics are usually described textually with rich qualitative descriptions. In an attempt to engage engineering students in societally-based design challenges the authors have integrated graphical design representations into the course. Such representations better align with engineering epistemology, potentially making the large body of work in the social sciences more accessible to students.

This paper reports on how a particular representation, the system map, is used to have third-year students explore systemic structures and practices that impact design decisions and processes. Students use system maps to identify ways design projects can impact on society in ways that have potentially negative consequences. Qualitative analysis of student system map artifacts over four course iterations was used in an action research approach to refine how to effectively integrate system map representations that capture societal issues and address issues of justice. Action research is an iterative methodology that utilizes evidence to improve practice, in this case the improving students’ facility with, and conceptions of, the societal impact of engineering work.

This practice-focused paper reports on how system maps can be used in engineering and what supporting practices, e.g. interviews and research, make their use more effective. Ways to utilize system maps specifically, and representations more generally, to connect technical aspects of engineering design to social justice topics and issues are discussed and examples provided to enable others to expand their repertoire of effective practices.