Ozgur Eris

Matthew W. Ohland

Sheri D. Sheppard

Gary Lichtenstein

Debbie Chachra

Richard A. Layton

Those responsible for designing, maintaining, and delivering engineering education are asking questions to understand the outcomes of undergraduate engineering programs. These questions have been motivated by concerns about the declining interest in studying engineering, the continued lack of gender and ethnic diversity in the engineering population in education and practice, and the effectiveness of programs in preparing engineering graduates to take on today's engineering challenges. This study compared persistence and engagement of students in undergraduate engineering and in other college majors. The authors found that, in general, engineering students are more persistent than, and as engaged as, other college students.

Persistence, Engagement, and Migration in Engineering Programs. Research Brief

Helen Chen

Krista Donaldson

Sheri Sheppard

George Toye

The Academic Pathways Study (APS) of the NSF-funded Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (CAEE) is a cross-university study that systematically examines how engineering students navigate their education, and how engineering skills and identity develop during their undergraduate careers. The APS has utilized a variety of methods including surveys, structured interviews, ethnographic methods, engineering design tasks, and academic transcripts to gain a broader and richer picture of students' undergraduate engineering experiences. Of this portfolio of methods, a key component has been the survey, and through the collective work of the APS, two instruments have emerged--the Persistence In Engineering (PIE) survey and the Academic Pathways of People Learning Engineering Survey (APPLES). Building upon the PIE survey and the findings from the other APS methods, APPLES was designed to look at academic and professional persistence in two different cross-sectional populations of American undergraduate engineering students. The main objective of APPLES was to corroborate earlier findings from the APS on a larger scale and in particular, to explore the generalizability of findings from the PIE survey to engineering students at a greater number of American higher education institutions. Although results of these analyses are ongoing, the integration of findings from both quantitative and qualitative APS methods represents a valuable contribution and a useful model for future research.

The Evolution of a Survey Instrument to Explore Engineering Student Pathways. Research Brief

From PIE to APPLES

Effective Inquiry for Innovative Engineering Design presents empirical evidence for this claim. It demonstrates a unique attribute of design thinking by identifying and characterizing a class of questions called "Generative Design Questions". These questions are frequently asked by designers in dialog. Their use constitutes a fundamental cognitive mechanism in design thinking. Their discovery stems from another finding of the work: a conceptual duality between questions and decisions that is engraved deep within the design process. This duality challenges a view that treats designing as decision making. Decisions form the tip of the iceberg; Questions keep it afloat: Can an effective decision making process be performed without having high quality information? Can high quality information be acquired and generated without performing an effective inquiry process? The answer to both questions is no, and underscores the importance of our quest to better understand the role of inquiry in design.

From Basic Principles to Applications

Effective Inquiry for Innovative Engineering Design

Ozgur Eris

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