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INITIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF NOVICE ENGINEERING DESIGNERS' CONSIDERATION OF CONTEXTUAL FACTORS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Grace Ellen Burleson ,
Sean Vincent Salazar Herrera ,
Kentaro Toyama  and
Kathleen H. Sienko
Grace Ellen Burleson*
Affiliation:
Integrative Systems and Design, University of Michigan
Sean Vincent Salazar Herrera
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan
Kentaro Toyama
Affiliation:
School of Information, University of Michigan
Kathleen H. Sienko
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan
*
Burleson, Grace Ellen, University of Michigan, Design Science, United States of America, [email protected]

Abstract

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Engineering designers are encouraged to consider relevant contextual factors throughout their design processes. However, specific practices for incorporating context into design processes are lacking in the existing literature, and curricula related to the use of context during design processes is limited. As a preliminary step toward characterizing novice engineering designers' use of contextual factors, we qualitatively coded 10 mechanical engineering capstone design reports for contextual factors; half of the projects had domestic sponsors with varying themes, and the other half of the projects had international sponsors with a global health theme. Our findings showed that teams considered technological and institutional factors most frequently; other factors were considered less frequently. Global health themed design teams considered more contextual factors than non-global health themed teams. There was considerable variability among the contextual factors considered, as well as the stages during which they were considered. These outcomes have the potential to inform the development of pedagogical tools to support the acquisition of skills related to formally addressing context during engineering design processes.

Keywords

Contextual factorsDesign educationDesign engineeringDesign methods
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 1: ICED21 , August 2021 , pp. 1857 - 1866
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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