Coaching Students into the Concept of Design Engineering

In Sweden the engineering education in product development is moving towards design and product realization. The reason behind this can be to improve our competition capability and to attract more students. The reason can also be a result of national research programs in engineering design and product realization. In August 2003 a new Master of Science program, Design and product realization was launched at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. This program was introduced as a program in design engineering, the aim of which is to educate design engineers, capable of developing attractive products. With an attractive product we mean a product that is appealing, functions well, is easy to use and has 'charisma'. The aim of this paper is to present results from a study of the students' definitions of the concept of design engineering, the ambition and the strategy of the faculty to coach the students in their development of their understanding and the progress and development of the students' understanding of the concept.