2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Intersection of Design and “X” Research Papers

Students in undergraduate engineering programs often face a series of courses that reward them for procedural knowledge that is presented, memorized, and performed. When first encountering design courses, students are challenged to engage in learning that may be organized in fundamentally different ways. This can be liberating for those who prefer to approach new concepts holistically and have learned to hold both the individual parts and their relationships to the whole system in mind simultaneously. However, it can be frustrating for those who struggle to manage the complexity and ambiguity of systems thinking. While others have focused on defining systems thinking, its utility in the curriculum, and appropriate assessment practices, there has been less attention paid to how pedagogies can be used to reinforce systems thinking among students. This study uses a phenomenological design to describe a pedagogical approach to design courses that scaffolds students’ development of systems thinking skills and mindsets within the context of mechanical engineering. The study draws on interviews with two faculty members teaching a thermal fluids design-based capstone course, focus groups with eight students, observations of class sessions, and Student Assessment of their Learning Gains (SALG) surveys. Using mixed methods with interpretative phenomenological analysis, the findings present an approach that scaffolds systems thinking in design through a series of pedagogical choices. The analyses triangulate faculty intentions and student experiences while differentiating impact by student learning preferences and expectations. The resulting framework provides an analog to complexity leadership theory within classroom teaching.