Students' Perceptions Of The Differences Between Design And Non Design Classes

Engineering design classes represent one of several different ways to reform engineering education to make it more responsive to the needs of industry and students. In design classes, students work in collaborative teams to develop a solution to an open-ended problem one having several feasible solutions. The open-ended problems incorporated in design classes are real-world, practical problems typical of those many young engineers will encounter in their first few years of practice. Thus, design classes fall into a growing category of classroom experiences that provide opportunities for students to engage in authentic activities, those of their intended profession. However, goals of design classes differ markedly from those of traditional engineering (non-design) classes which raises questions not only about students’ perceptions of design classes, but also about how students’ perceptions of what constitutes “real” engineering coursework constrain students’ design work. As suggested by Tonso and Catalano (1995), taken-for-granted past practices such as traditional coursework constrain reform in engineering education. As part of a larger research investigation into the development of engineering identities among students participating in design work (Tonso, in progress), I am studying how engineering students are embedded in engineering education, what constraints exist to students’ becoming engineers, and how those constraints vary due to gender, age, or prior experiences. The survey reported in this paper represents a potiion of my efforts to investigate these constraints by studying students’ perceptions about design and non-design engineering classes.