Learning to Solve Unarticulated Problems in Engineering Education and Work

• In Event: Roundtable Session 51
  In Roundtable Session: Situating Learning and Becoming in Practice

Abstract

OBJECTIVE & THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The engineering education community endorses the notion that there is a mismatch between engineering education and engineering work, but not enough is known about the everyday practices of engineering work to discern where the mismatch lies (Stevens, Johri & O’Connor 2013). Research suggests that one locus of this mismatch is that the problems students learn to solve in their courses are too “tame” (Rittel & Webber 1973) to serve as realistic examples of the problems they will encounter in their careers as engineers. Whether truly “wicked,” or simply messy, engineers solve unarticulated problems as a routine part of their work. How, then, do engineers learn to solve unarticulated problems? Is this a skill learned on the job, in school, or both? This paper empirically maps the problem-solving strategies of young engineers as they move from their undergraduate education into professional engineering work.
In order to find out what sorts of problems engineering students and professional engineers are confronted with and how they learn to solve them, we interviewed recent graduates of an engineering school located at a private university in the Midwest. As recounted in interviews, students learn problem-solving skills in their freshman and senior design courses, in regular lecture courses, and during internships and professional work experiences after graduation. In lecture courses, students’ individual facility with engineering concepts is assessed through solving problem sets; these are the ‘clean’ or ‘tame’ problems noted in the literature (Jonassen et al. 2006). In their design courses, students encounter unarticulated problems, learn to be client-oriented, and learn that non-technical aspects of engineering work are as relevant for success as technical aspects of engineering. In internship placements before graduation, students have opportunities to work on small projects and tasks to support operations at their worksites.
We found that students were taught various methods to ‘clean up’ messy problems; indeed, this is one aspect of the “engineering mentality” students referred to in interviews. In this paper we outline practices of “cleaning up,” including specifying assumptions when solving problems and assessing the plausibility of solutions to already-solved problems. We also examine technical practices like freehand drawing that can be used to conceptualize and solve problems in the field. However, what qualifies as “clean enough” is not self-evident. This is a skill that students train throughout their education, forming a disciplined perception (Stevens & Hall 1998) that resembles an engineer’s way of “seeing” how to solve problems.
The warrant for this work is that not enough is known about professional engineering work, yet educational settings are being continually transformed to help students prepare for work as professional engineers. Understanding practices of problem solving across educational and work settings will allow us to see where these practices overlap or diverge, thereby rounding out our knowledge of everyday work in professional engineering settings. Specifically, understanding how the “engineering mentality” is developed in undergraduate education and applied in various settings will help us characterize how and why messy problems are cleaned up enough to be solved.

Authors

• Alexandra Vinson, Northwestern University

• Reed Stevens, Northwestern University