2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

This complete research paper describes efforts to better understand the impact of problem-framing tools on first-year engineering students’ problem framing skills, as well as efforts to improve these tools. The first year of an engineering undergraduate program is an integral part of the students' academic development. Although the first-year engineering (FYE) community lacks universal learning objectives and course outcomes, these courses commonly introduce students to the university and profession while also covering professional and engineering skills. At [university], students experience and practice problem framing and solving skills. The students utilize design process canvases that guide them through initial steps of a design process. Four canvases help the students identify an opportunity statement, stakeholders, and design specifications. The canvases were initially developed at [university] to encourage FYE students to connect stakeholders to the problem statement. The canvases later expanded to develop engineering problem framing in high school students and were revisited, again, to enable user-centered and entrepreneurially-minded design. While the canvases are theorized to aid the design process, their direct impact on students’ education development is still being understood.

This study aims to understand how the design canvases impact FYE students in their introductory engineering courses. Approximately twenty-five volunteer students, placed into groups of four to six students based on a range of factors, completed study activities. The groups completed a set of canvases based on a design prompt. Artifacts from the design prompts were evaluated using a predeveloped rubric. Students were given the opportunity to express their opinions on the design canvases and FYE course in focus groups. Researchers conducted the design prompts and focus groups at the beginning and end of the spring semester of 2024.

Researchers observed and analyzed a variance in student group performance based on the grouping factors. Students provided critical feedback in the focus groups that is being used to refine the canvases to promote a streamlined design process.