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Task Relevant Information in Engineering Problem Solving
Author(s) -
Kumsaikaew Piyamart,
Jackman John,
Dark Veronica J.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of engineering education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.896
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 2168-9830
pISSN - 1069-4730
DOI - 10.1002/j.2168-9830.2006.tb00895.x
Subject(s) - task (project management) , set (abstract data type) , computer science , process (computing) , information engineering , task analysis , affect (linguistics) , engineering design process , engineering education , human–computer interaction , information system , engineering , psychology , systems engineering , engineering management , electrical engineering , communication , programming language , operating system , mechanical engineering
Identifying task relevant information in an engineering problem solving environment is a critical step in the problem solving process. An experiment was conducted in which engineering students identified task relevant information in a set of engineering problems that differed in terms of information density and relevant information distribution. Signal Detection Theory and cluster analysis were used to analyze the results. As expected, students with more expertise were more successful in identifying task relevant information. Other results suggest that the structure of problem descriptions can affect student performance.