Scaffolding provided to engineering students in cornerstone design project scenarios related to practices of expert designers

Abstract

First-year engineering students involved in design projects, now commonly called "cornerstone" projects, are typically given various forms of scaffolding to support their learning at the postsecondary educational level as they gain the skills necessary to eventually conduct self-directed design projects as professionals. The scaffolding may appear to students in the form of a prescribed design process with discrete steps and iteration points; a skeletal project schedule requiring student project teams to fully populate and expand it; predetermined benchmarking and lab- or library-based investigation and research; partially worked, theoretical, predictive calculations to complete; kitted, limited equipment, materials, and tooling access; building; testing; instructor-prescribed or fault-driven design revisions, as well as other forced design iterations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the scaffolding described above in terms of how it compares to the prescriptions of experienced designers in academia. This study also seeks to compare the proportion of time spent by first-year engineering students on typical design process activities and the sufficiency of student-designer iterations versus the importance placed on equivalent activities by faculty. In addition, this study discusses the ensuing questions regarding the disparity in time and effort placed by students on certain design process activities as compared to the importance of these activities as deemed by the faculty designers: How do students appropriate their time and efforts in the design process? How is student application of the design process related to the scaffolding provided? How do student design activities and the corresponding scaffolding supporting student design compare to the desired activities, habits, and prescriptions of experienced designers in academia? In order to assess these objectives, surveys were conducted for novice designers (students). The student team-based anonymous surveys were conducted on a weekly basis throughout a termlength design for four distinct cornerstone projects, with 18 teams on each design project (72 total teams or approximately 288 total students) in the First-year Engineering Program within the Engineering Education Innovation Center at The Ohio State University. Student cornerstone design teams were found to be spending at least 7% of their total time spent on each phase of the design and project management processes. Student teams also visited each phase of the design process at least 1.2 times per week throughout the term of the project. © 2012 American Society for Engineering Education.