Unpacking Productivity in the Practice of Design Task Tinkering

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: Discipline-Based Research in Engineering Education

Abstract

Tinkering is an ad-hoc approach to a problem and involves the practice of manipulating objects to characterize and build knowledge about a particular system in an exploratory way, often with the goal of getting some product/idea to produce desired behavior. Tinkering thus contrasts with more deliberate activity towards understanding how some phenomenon works or towards achieving conceptual understanding. Researchers disagree on whether or not tinkering is a productive activity for students to engage in. We unpack the process of tinkering to speak to this tension on the productivity of tinkering for novice designers and programmers, taking into account the multiplicity of goals and actors in a design context. We argue for a more nuanced understanding of productivity and tinkering.

Authors

• Gina Quan, University of Maryland - College Park

• Ayush Gupta, University of Maryland - College Park