Problem Definition in Engineering Design: Using the Universe of Problems Approach to Aid Novice Performance

Abstract

This thesis describes the importance of the problem definition phase of the engineering design process. The key finding of this study is that when novices are provided with schemes (or design prototypes), their ability to diagnose problems well is dramatically increased. Chapter 2 reviews the literature which explores the culture of engineering and how this culture relates to the practice of problem definition. Chapter 3 surveys the current state of engineering design textbooks regarding problem definition and evaluates several potential tools that can be used in the defining process from the field of Requirements Engineering. Chapter 4 looks again at problem definition, but with a focus on the nature of a problem itself, not just the process required to define a problem. Chapter 5 describes an undergraduate course which was created as a result of this research: a course which sought to provide schemes for second-year students to help them understand the key problems in their field and to identify when such problems appeared in realistic case-study scenarios. Finally, Chapter 6 describes the study which was conducted to determine the effect of providing second-year students with these design prototypes. This study found that novices can bring their performance much closer to the level of more experienced students in a problem-definition task as a result of being provided with a Universe of Problems. In fact, according to the sample data, when novices were not presented with a scheme (in terms of a mathematical model) their performance decreased by approximately 9.6%.