2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In traditional engineering education, there is a strong emphasis on theoretical knowledge and classroom-based design experiences. However, this often leaves a critical gap in understanding how students' perceptions and attitudes developed in the classroom translate into real-world engineering design practice. Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is a valuable educational approach for easing engineering novices’ transition to the workplace, yet little is known about how students experience design and build engineering design skills and confidence through WIL experiences (cite). This study aims to explore the attitudes and perceptions of novice engineers towards design practice while participating in WIL placements.
Our study tracked the experiences of three engineering students over a 4-month paid, co-operative work term. We conducted ten weekly interviews with each student, commencing in the fourth week of their term. We employed an adapted version of the ECHO interview method to collect in-depth contextual descriptions of each participant's experiences, attitudes, and the factors influencing them. We analyzed the interview transcripts using an iterative thematic analysis approach to identify common themes in the students' attitudes and experiences. This analysis identified three main themes in the student responses; the theme that is the focus of this paper – “affective domain” – comprises student responses related to their feelings while designing, including their confidence in their ability to succeed, their frustration and anxieties as they designed, and their attitudes towards adversity, authority, and uncertainty.
The results shed light on where students perceived disparities between their classroom-based design experiences and their responses to those differences. These disparities centered on the long-term (i.e., longer than a single academic term), team-based, open-ended design challenges encountered during the design co-op.
One important area where the work-term design projects differed from classroom experiences was in the fact that these projects spanned multiple students' employment tenures, necessitating project transitions. As this is not something typically seen in the classroom setting, the students found it challenging to take over established design projects and understand the rationale behind previous designers' decisions. Despite this experience, the students also struggled to consider how their decisions would impact future project team members.
The students also expressed that the open-ended and under-specified design problems they encountered during their work terms did not align with their desire to create a "perfect" solution. This contrasted with classroom design problems, where the submission at the end of the term culminated the project and determined their success. The real-world design process, characterized by changing stakeholder demands, iterative cycles, and delays due to external factors, caused frustration and discomfort among the students. However, they also faced challenges with over-constrained problems during their work terms, feeling overwhelmed by the volume of design information and constraints.
The students often relied on more experienced designers to make decisions regarding the form and functionality of the design solution, and the structure of the design projects. Additionally, they exhibited a preference for avoiding uncertainty and experimentation with unfamiliar approaches or solutions. Interestingly, despite these challenges, the students indicated that they felt adequately prepared by their previous design experiences for the difficulties they faced in their design projects.
This paper will discuss the practical realities of design beyond the classroom as experienced by student designers, including the contextual factors student designers must navigate during the design process. Implications for improving engineering design education will be discussed.