"Problem solving" in engineering: Research on students' engineering design practices and mathematical modeling practices

Engineers encounter a variety of problems in professional practice, ranging from well-defined to ill-defined; closed-ended to open-ended; and context-independent to context-dependent. Preparing engineering students to be able to address these different types of problems means that we must provide educational experiences that provide students with opportunities to develop a variety of skills, strategies and "ways of thinking." However, in order to prepare students for problem-solving in professional practice, we must understand how they approach problem-solving as undergraduates. In the current study, 90 students ranging from entering (first-year) engineering students to graduating engineering students, as well as graduating mathematics and graduating design students, will participate in this verbal protocol analysis study. Data collection is still underway, but preliminary findings suggest that the students draw on different design and mathematics strategies, and that their processes vary based on their previous design and mathematics experiences.