2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

One key process of Systems Design is goal formulation. It should be conducted with consideration of short- and long-term goals from both technical and contextual aspects. To be competitive in professional practice, engineering graduates should be able to engage in and complete such activities with a high level of competency. In our study, first year engineering students were asked to engage in a scenario-based task with goal formulation activities. Results from this study contribute to the development of effective teaching strategies to educate engineering students in their development of Systems Thinking Skills.

Study participants were tasked to complete a scenario-based assessment proposed by Grohs, et al. (2018) that focuses on systems thinking and problem-solving by responding to a scenario. The scenario prompts (Prompt 5 and 6) asked students to formulate goals for a specific issue. Data was collected electronically and analyzed using qualitative coding methods by applying the assessment tool rubric to evaluate students’ ability to identify both short-term and long-term goals from both technical and contextual aspects. We rated their answers on the expectations of a successful plan and a draft idea of it, which according to the authors, elicits students’ goal formulation skills.

Results show that when given design constraints (e.g., budget) and instructions (Prompt 6), more participants properly formulated their goals with consideration of short- and long-term plans from both technical and contextual aspects. However, the percentage dropped when the information was not provided, and the participants had to make reasonable assumptions (Prompt 5). The majority of the participants managed to formulate long-term goals.

The findings demonstrate that most engineering students recognize that systems change and evolve with time, therefore the importance of addressing the changing problems with short- and long-term goals. However, many of them need scaffolding to assist their goal formulation activities, such as design constraints and guidelines. Systems engineering educators might consider teaching contents that would train students to gather necessary information and build scaffolding on their own through the goal formulation activities.