2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Students’ Use of Engineering Judgment on Undergraduate Student Project Teams

Presented at Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 2

This work-in-progress paper examines students’ use of engineering judgment while participating in engineering student project teams. Engineering judgment is the development and use of mathematical models for analysis and design. It is an important skill for engineers to have in order to properly model real-world situations, but it is challenging to teach in undergraduate classes. Our research lab has focused on the productive beginnings of engineering judgment (PBJ), which is the development of engineering judgment, in undergraduate students for a number of years now. In the past we have implemented open-ended modeling problems into engineering science classes, mostly at the sophomore level, to elicit PBJ. We now explore the transferability and relevance of that productive beginnings of engineering judgment codebook to students participating in engineering student project teams.

Authors

Jack Boomer Perry University of Michigan [biography]

Boomer is a graduate student completing his master's degree in aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan. His focus in engineering education research has been towards bridging the gap between the undergraduate engineering curriculum and engineering industry practice.
Emily Buten University of Michigan [biography]

Emily (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in the Engineering Education Research program at the University of Michigan and received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Dayton. Her research focuses on individuals' development from students to professional engineers. She is particularly interested in studying co-op/internship programs, experiential learning opportunities, professional skills development, and diverse student experiences in experiential learning settings.
Dr. Aaron W. Johnson University of Michigan [biography]

Aaron W. Johnson (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department and a Core Faculty member of the Engineering Education Research Program at the University of Michigan. His lab’s design-based research focuses on how to re-contextualize engineering science engineering courses to better reflect and prepare students for the reality of ill-defined, sociotechnical engineering practice. Their current projects include studying and designing classroom interventions around macroethical issues in aerospace engineering and the productive beginnings of engineering judgment as students create and use mathematical models. Aaron holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from U-M, and a Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to re-joining U-M, he was an instructor in Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

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