Chapter 3 – Studying Engineering Design Learning: Four Verbal Protocol Studies

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses specifically on the use of verbal protocol analysis (VPA) to characterize the design learning and knowing of students in engineering schools. Verbal protocol analysis is a rigorous methodology used to document and understand the processes associated with cognitive activities, such as design. The four verbal protocol studies presented here provide insights into engineering student design processes. These studies, and others like them, can form a strong research foundation for improving design learning in the engineering curriculum. The VPA methodology is applied to the study of engineering student design processes and the results of each of the four studies have been summarized in the chapter. A synthesis of the overall results is discussed and some ideas about the implications of the results for engineering design education are presented. In the last decade, engineering design has become a central topic in discussions of engineering education reform, leading to a strong need to understand the processes of engineering student designers. The assumption behind verbal-protocol analysis is that as long as the subject is simply talking about what they are doing, the talking does not significantly change the approach they use to perform the activity. The implementation of verbal protocol analysis can be time-consuming, and the results challenging to interpret. However, the process of verbal-protocol analysis research is relatively straightforward.