Engineering Design Thinking.

Engineering design thinking is a topic of interest to STEM practitioners and researchers alike. Engineering design thinking is " a complex cognitive process " often complex, involving multiple levels of interacting components within a system that may be nested within or connected to other systems. Systems thinking is an essential facet of engineering design cognition (Accreditation Although systems thinking has not previously played a prominent role in engineering education research, it is becoming recognized as an important engineering trait (Dym & Little, 2009; Katehi et al., 2009). Due to the nascency of systems thinking research in engineering education, there are few studies that have investigated systems thinking and its impact on engineering design, particularly with K–12 students. As a result, how high school students employ systems thinking processes and strategies is not adequately understood or identified. This research examined high school students' systems cognitive issues, processes, and themes while they engaged in a collaborative engineering design challenge. Cognitive issues are mental activities used during a design challenge, while the processes are the ways in which the issues are approached or sequenced (Gero, 1990). Using exploratory triangulation mixed method research, the systems cognitive issues and processes were analyzed through the Function-Behavior-Structure (FBS) cognitive analysis framework. Additionally, emerging systems thinking themes and phenomena in engineering design were analyzed thematically outside of the FBS framework. Data from the different sources (verbal, video, computer movements, and sketches) were coded, organized, categorized, and synthesized for themes and patterns. Each data analysis technique yielded useful results on their own, but they were also used together to produce a broader understanding of systems thinking. The research was guided by two questions:1. What are the cognitive issues and processes used by high school students when attempting an engineering design challenge analyzed through the FBS framework? 2. Are there emerging qualitative themes and phenomena as they relate to systems thinking in engineering design? If there are themes or phenomena, how can these themes and phenomena be analyzed and interpreted—essentially repeatedly reviewing and analyzing the data sources outside of the FBS framework looking for themes, patterns, and phenomena? Background Engineering design is a process that has no agreed upon definition. Nevertheless, there are multiple K–12 programs and curricula that purport to teach engineering design (Katehi et al., 2009). Although the design definitions vary, studies have shown that high school students can engage in engineering Complexity is another ambiguous term, (Davis …

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