The quality of engineering decision-making in student design teams

Abstract

Engineers often must decide between multiple design options that present tradeoffs. Engineering students gain experience making and justifying such decisions during team design projects or capstone courses. While previous studies of engineering student design teams have focused on idea generation, conceptual design, team dynamics, and individual skills such as communication and leadership, few have studied decision-making within these teams. This paper presents a framework for evaluating justifications of engineering design decisions and investigates the quality of engineering decision-making during a team engineering design decision-making task in a first-year engineering course. Nineteen teams of three or four students were asked to investigate three design options and recommend one to a client. Decisions were evaluated based on the quality of indicated criteria, the quality of data used to support the decision, and the alignment between evidence gathered and criteria selected. Analysis of the team memos indicated that most teams supported their decisions with applicable data, but did not rely on accurate data or consider all appropriate data and criteria in their decisions. In addition to presenting a rubric that can be used to evaluate student engineering design decisions, this paper will contribute recommendations for instruction on engineering design decision-making. ©American Society for Engineering education, 2013.