2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Work in Progress: Professional Engineers' Reflections on Design Decision-Making: Implications for Engineering Education

This work-in-progress paper explores how engineering education often relies on idealized design models in capstone courses and curricula, where problems are structured, resources abundant, and solutions focus on theoretical optimization. In contrast, practicing engineers must navigate multifaceted trade-offs influenced by constraints such as budget limitations, time pressures, safety requirements, and stakeholder demands. This gap can impede students’ development of adaptive design mindsets essential for professional success. To address this gap, we draw on early findings from a larger constructivist grounded theory investigation into engineering identity and motivation, examining practitioners’ decision-making in real-world contexts to inform authentic pedagogical strategies.
We specifically examine focused codes and theoretical categorizations in semi-structured interview transcripts from 11 practicing civil and structural engineers. Preliminary patterns reveal deviations from academic ideals, with design processes emphasizing pragmatic compromises over optimization, such as balancing compliance with efficiency and adapting to challenges. Findings suggest professional design mindsets prioritize iterative decision-making under uncertainty, fostering resilience through values-aligned trade-offs. While we are still conducting the full analysis, these early insights highlight opportunities to enhance design methods and frameworks in education by integrating real-world complexities.
We offer this WIP paper as an early snapshot of emergent findings to characterize the gaps between school and workplace design settings. Our early work suggests implications for teaching and curriculum design, such as incorporating case-based simulations that involve resource trade-offs and ethical considerations. In general, our work illustrates how leveraging practitioner perspectives, educators can better prepare students for seamless transitions to industry, promoting robust design mindsets and lifelong engagement in engineering practice.

Authors

Stephanie Adams Oregon State University [biography]

Stephanie Adams is currently enrolled as a doctoral student at Oregon State University, where she is working towards her PhD in Civil Engineering with a concentration in Engineering Education. Her current research focuses on the adoption of evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs) among engineering faculty members. Additionally, she is investigating the identity development of engineering students in capstone courses.
Dr. Shane A. Brown P.E. http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3669-8407 Oregon State University [biography]

Shane Brown is an associate professor and Associate School Head in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Oregon State University. His research interests include conceptual change and situated cognition. He received the NSF CAREER award in
Dr. James L. Huff http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6693-5808 University of Georgia [biography]

Dr. James Huff is an Associate Professor within the Engineering Education Transformations Institute and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education, where he has held multiple leadership positions. Dr. Huff serves as a Deputy Editor with the Journal of Engineering Education and serves on the editorial boards for Personality and Social Psychology Review and the International Journal of Qualitative Methods. He earned his Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University, his M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue, and his B.S. in Computer Engineering from Harding.

Dr. Huff is a qualitative researcher whose work lies at the interdisciplinary nexus of engineering education research and applied personality and social psychology. An NSF CAREER Awardee, he is committed to fostering care as a central mindset of engineering and other professions through his in-depth examinations of personal lived experiences of identity and emotion, facets often hidden within professional domains. As Principal Investigator of the Beyond Professional Identity lab, Dr. Huff has mentored undergraduates, doctoral students, and professionals from over seventeen disciplines in conducting their qualitative investigations on psychological phenomena relevant to equity and well-being in workplaces and degree programs.
Elliott Clement Oregon State University [biography]

Elliott Clement is a doctoral student at Oregon State University. His current research is using grounded theory to understand identity and motivation within the context of capstone design courses. He is also part of a research team investigating context-specific affordances and barriers faculty face when adopting evidence-based instructional practices in their engineering courses.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 21, 2026, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 24, 2026