While prior work indicates that seniors near the end of their capstone design course know more about design than first-year students, it is unclear where this knowledge is gained. We study two possible sources of seniors’ greater design knowledge: coursework during sophomore and junior years and industrial experience. The design process knowledge of seniors at the beginning of their capstone class was assessed and information about their industrial experience obtained. These data were compared to assessment data of first-year students at the end of an introduction to engineering design course. The results indicate that industrial experience greatly increases students’ recognition that documentation needs to occur throughout the design process. Seniors with industrial experience, however, are less aware that idea generation is an important part of design and are less able to allot time to different design activities than first-year students at the end of a hands-on introduction to engineering design course. For the remaining four aspects of design process knowledge assessed—namely, identifying the requirements for a project at the project’s outset, making decisions with a systematic process based on analysis, building and testing prototypes and final designs, and the overall layout of design including iteration—no differences are found between seniors with industrial experience and first-year students at the end of an introduction to engineering design course. One explanation for why industrial experience does not impact student’s design process knowledge positively in more areas than documentation is that students on internships only experience a small portion of a design process. Due to this “snapshot” experience, either (1) students are not able to learn a significant amount about the bigger picture design concepts or (2) students each learn about different aspects of design but, as a population, do not show any significant increase in design process knowledge. The one activity that all interns will experience is the necessity to document their work. Furthermore, seniors without industrial experience scored no differently than first-year students on any single aspect of design process knowledge measured. This indicates that analysis-heavy sophomore and junior classes do not impact design process knowledge.
Skip Nav Destination
e-mail: rrbailey@virginia.edu
Article navigation
July 2007
Research Papers
Effects of Industrial Experience and Coursework During Sophomore and Junior Years on Student Learning of Engineering Design
Reid Bailey
e-mail: rrbailey@virginia.edu
Reid Bailey
University of Virginia
, P.O. Box 400747, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4747
Search for other works by this author on:
Reid Bailey
University of Virginia
, P.O. Box 400747, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4747e-mail: rrbailey@virginia.edu
J. Mech. Des. Jul 2007, 129(7): 662-667 (6 pages)
Published Online: December 16, 2006
Article history
Received:
November 9, 2006
Revised:
December 16, 2006
Citation
Bailey, R. (December 16, 2006). "Effects of Industrial Experience and Coursework During Sophomore and Junior Years on Student Learning of Engineering Design." ASME. J. Mech. Des. July 2007; 129(7): 662–667. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2722323
Download citation file:
Get Email Alerts
Related Articles
Articulating a Learning Objective
J. Mech. Des (July,2007)
Creativity and the Use of CAD Tools: Lessons for Engineering Design Education From Industry
J. Mech. Des (July,2007)
What Constitutes a Good Design Education Research Paper That Would be Suitable for JMD?
J. Mech. Des (March,2011)
Related Proceedings Papers
Related Chapters
Research on Effects of Business Intelligence Upon Enterprise Management
International Conference on Mechanical Engineering and Technology (ICMET-London 2011)
Enterprise Collaborative Mashup on Business Application
International Conference on Advanced Computer Theory and Engineering, 4th (ICACTE 2011)
Development of Electronic Learning Industrial Environment (eLIN) System for Requirement Engineering Education
International Conference on Computer Technology and Development, 3rd (ICCTD 2011)