Engineering Design: Are We Teaching The Right Stuff?

Developing an undergraduate engineering design curriculum can be a challenge. Using the continuous improvement process adopted by ABET 2000, engineering programs typically consider: which outcomes our program should set out to achieve, which assessment measures to use, and how we should make revisions to develop our program. To achieve the “outcomes” program faculty carefully develop curricula including what should be taught, and also when and how it should be taught. This study reviewed literature, beginning with 1991, covering capstone design and design education in general. The composition of respondents varies such as group surveys covering capstone design among different disciplines and other, more narrowly focused surveys. In summary the studies indicate that since Dixon’s seminal article in 1991 we have seen: increased emphasis in integrating the Product Realization Process, improvement in the working definitions of design and design processes, an increase in the number of design topics taught in capstone design from 1994 to 2005, but, an apparent and dramatic decrease in the number of design topics from 2003-2006.