Characterizing Engineering Student Design Processes An Illustration Of Iteration

Engineering design problems are often ambiguous, ill-structured, and usually have multiple solutions. As a result, a designer’s understanding of the problem or possible solutions evolves through a process of iteration. To understand iterative behaviors we need to investigate what information is known by the designer, how that information is acquired and utilized, what kinds of changes to the design problem occurred as a result of these activities, and how these behaviors affect the quality of the final solution and contribute to the efficiency of the design process itself. In our previous work, we developed a cognitive model for capturing both the evolution of these information processing activities and any changes made to the design problem, solution or process. In this paper we present a case study analysis comparing freshmen and senior engineering students. Verbal protocol data and independent measures of the quality of students final design solutions were used to provide illustrative examples of differences in iterative approaches related to experience and performance. An analysis of these behaviors in terms of problem scoping, solution revision, and comprehension monitoring activities will be presented and discussed.