Towards A Model Of Teaching Expertise In Capstone Design: Development And Validation Of A Preliminary Survey Instrument

Capstone design courses seek to create a transitional environment between school and work by engaging students in collaborative, open-ended projects. These environments present a challenge to capstone faculty because the pedagogies used in such courses may differ significantly from those used in more traditional courses focused on technical content. To date, however, little literature exists to help define these pedagogies or understand teaching expertise in the capstone classroom more broadly. To address this gap, this paper describes the development, validation, and results of a survey instrument to explore capstone teaching, using expertise constructs from the K-12 literature as a starting point. Results from this instrument, distributed as part of a national survey of capstone faculty, suggest that current capstone faculty exhibit expertise traits related to both experience and knowledge, but not those related to social recognition and teacher preparation. The next phase of this study will examine the degree to which these constructs correlate to both specific teaching practices and student learning in the design classroom.