DESIGN TEAM PERFORMANCE: A COMPARISON BETWEEN SELF-FORMED TEAMS AND TEAMS WITH DIVERSE COGNITIVE MODES

Assessment in capstone engineering design courses is vital to engineering education programs. The capstone design course is the climax of design education and often the context for much of the assessment done in engineering degree programs. Capstone design course instructors’ admittedly low confidence for assessing student performance in these courses poses a crucial obstacle to the assessment process. A key issue is a lack of clear outcomes definition for engineering design and sound, defensible assessments for these outcomes. This paper draws from findings in design literature and from engineering design education experience to construct a conceptual model of engineering design that guides development of associated design learning outcomes and assessment of student achievements in design. A conceptual model of design is vital to design education, because it is one of three essential cornerstones— model, observation, and interpretation— for constructing assessments. In the context of an engineering classroom, design performance produces two different and complementary types of outcomes: learner development and solution development. Further, design is: open-ended, iterative, creative, collaborative, goal-driven, process-intensive, productfocused, customer-oriented, value-added, and constrained by society. Learner and solution development usually progresses from a state of students’ fragmented understanding and ideas to a more mature state of integrated understanding and design solutions. The proposed conceptual model for engineering design identifies four areas of performance that describe design: (1) personal capacity, (2) team processes, (3) solution requirements, and (4) solution assets. The first two characterize learner development and the latter two characterize solution development. Personal capacity is the designer’s development of skills which support technically sound and responsible design. Team processes address a team’s behaviors and productivity in design activities. Solution requirements address the team’s understanding of stakeholder needs and concerns. Solution assets encompass the value added, practicality, and impact of the design solution. These four performance areas are essential to design. They identify performances that develop over time, contribute to the success of design outcomes, and stimulate growth in one another for integrated enhancement of design performance. They also provide the basis for a versatile, comprehensive definition of engineering design performance that can guide instruction and can focus assessments in capstone engineering design courses.

본 논문은 공학교육과정에서 사용되는 캡스톤디자인 교과목에 대한 평가체계의 개발 사례를 소개한다. 캡스톤디자인은 대학 과정에서 배운 전문지식을 종합적으로 활용하여, 산업현장의 문제를 분석하고 해결책을 설계하는 교과목이다. 본 논문에서는 캡스톤디자인 교과목과 관련된 기존의 평가 요소, 평가 방법 및 절차를 설명한다. 이를 기반으로 개발된 캡스톤디자인 평가체계를 소개한다. 본 논문에서 제시한 캡스톤디자인 교과목의 학습성과 평가체계는 타대학의 캡스톤디자인 교과목 운영 시 일부 참고될 수 있으며, 산학이 연계된 교육 및 인턴 프로그램 개발 시 평가체계 설계를 위해서도 사용될 수 있다. This paper introduces a case study on the development of the evaluation system for capstone design course which is usually provided at engineering education program. A capstone design is an engineering education course which aims to improve the students' ability on analysis and design of practical industrial problems by use of overall engineering knowledge which has been learned in undergraduate program. Firstly, this paper provides a literature review on evaluation indices and methods related with a capstone design course. Secondly, the evaluation system for learning outcomes of capstone design course is described. The evaluation system for learning outcomes of capstone design course provided in this paper could be referred by other universities opening a capstone design course, and used to design an evaluation system for internship program or education course which is provided as an industry-academic connection program.

In non-engineering departments such as cosmetology as well, capstone design has been operated as an educational program and evaluation method, generating some positive educational effects. To examine the adoption of capstone design among domestic cosmetology-related college curriculums, this study investigated the total number of credits granted, distribution of academic departments by school, supporting units within academic departments and schools and receipt of government subsidy from the Ministry of Education, and the results found the followings: In 2018, a total of 3,590 students from 31 departments under school of natural sciences and 22 departments under school of art and physical education completed cosmetology-related capstone design courses. In average, each student was assisted by KRW 90,532. The supporting units were operated in cooperation with office of academic affairs (23 colleges), academia-industry cooperation foundation (21 colleges) and strategic support center for government-funded projects (8 colleges). The course titles differed by college. In fact, new and unique capstone design course titles have been used by academic major. It is anticipated that the study results would be available as basic data needed to enhance educational effects for applying capstone design courses and planning government-funded projects, search new items and improve their utilization.

In a multifaceted course such as senior capstone design, it is integral to ensure students are receiving a value adding experience. In most universities across the United States, senior capstone design is a multiple semester sequence where design is heavily emphasized and students are encouraged to test their skills, both technical and nontechnical, by solving and implementing solutions to real industry problems. Given the nature of design courses, the takeaways are not things that can be measured solely through the use of a letter grade. Rather, an in-depth reflective interview must be performed to fully comprehend what students received from the course. In this study, an In-Depth Interview Protocol was developed to understand the effectiveness of engineering design courses and improve design education as a whole. This paper outlines the phases that contribute towards the development of an effective interview protocol for implementation in senior capstone design curriculum. The formulation and considerations are outlined with respect to design curriculum and student success. This protocol will be utilized to perform a Reflection Interview for each senior design project team at the end of the spring 2019 semester. The assignment is not graded and is inquisitive on the students’ perceptions of motivation during their time at Florida Tech. The qualitative data gathered will be eligible for further studies and analysis.

The capstone design course allows students to synthesize solutions to open ended problems. However without some urging, the students tend to focus on the easy part of the project-a single technical solution. The paper deals with some experience in bringing the more demanding aspects of technical projects into the design course. These include: (1) defining the real project with your customer will we know when we're done?. (2) Planning for success. Resource analysis-time, money knowledge, equipment and all of their interactions. (3) What is the best solution? Holding design reviews and comparing alternatives. (4) Communication skills. How do you keep the design team, the boss, and the customer up to date? (5) Presentation of project information in written and verbal forms. (6) Team dynamics. How to support the development of high performance teams? (7) Social skills. Why do I have to deal differently with Mary than with Anne to get their commitment and support? (8) Conflict. Why you need it and how to manage it. Each of the above topics could be a course in itself, but the capstone design course is an ideal place to discuss and exhibit the interaction of these complex issues. These discussions sow the seeds that will allow our graduates to perform at a higher level in all of their future project activities.

Senior design projects can be a way to bring the university closer to societal needs. This paper describes how the senior capstone design courses in power engineering developed at the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagiiez (UPRM) strive to provide a service to society. These projects deal with societal needs, and are part of design courses that culminate the major design experience as specified by ABET. Teams of students identify a society-based problem, propose a design solution, perform measurements/simulations and present the final analysis and design to an industry or community partner. An important aspect of the projects is the inclusion of both technical and social constraints such as safety and environmental issues. These design experiences are an ideal way to understanding the new challenges in power systems planning, policy, analysis and design

This paper describes the senior computer engineering capstone design course at Washington University in St. Louis. As part of this course, three-student teams develop a complete 8-bit microprocessor using a hardware description language (VHDL) and implement their designs in a small FPGA. Programmed FPGAs are "booted" at the end of the course and tested for accuracy. Students also write an assembler or a simple calculator for their microprocessor. This paper describes the microprocessor architecture and tool flow used in the course.

As with most engineering schools, the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Queen’s University in Kingston, has a final year capstone design course. Since 1998, capstone projects have involved teams of students working on industry-based problems. This paper summarizes the experience of current and past course coordinators with the university-industry component, comments on how the Conceiv Design Implement Operate (CDIO) elements of the design cycle are handled, and discusses the implications of the two term structure of the course. The first term course MECH 460 Team Project – Conceive and Design is mandatory for all students. The second term course MECH 462 Team Project – Implement and Operate is optional.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of team composition on team performance. A total of 67 student teams participated in their team-based task for more than 10 weeks and a team is an unit of analysis. The composition variables included demographic diversity (gender and college starting year), cognitive diversity, and Big Five personality factors. To test the hypothesis that there will be significant differences in team performance between three groups (low-, medium-, and high-diversity) varying with demographic (gender and college starting year) and cognitive diversity, one-way ANOVAs and post-hoc analyses were used. Findings regarding gender diversity revealed that team performance was greater for medium- and low-diversity groups than for high-diversity group. While findings regarding college starting year revealed that team performance was greater for low- and high-diversity groups than for medium-diversity group, findings regarding cognitive diversity measured by diversity of attending colleges revealed that team performance was greater for medium-diversity group than for high-diversity group. These findings suggest that there will be an optimal level of diversity for enhancing team performance. Then we examined the relationships between Big Five personality factors as team composition variables and team outcomes. Team extroversion showed positive relationships with the creative part and team presentation. However, the minimum of team agreeableness showed negative relationships with the logical part of team performance, which was the opposite of our hypothesis. We discussed that the personality factors for team composition could vary with task characteristics.

Reports on the viability, success, and future of Capstone design courses.

One of the more difficult tasks in engineering education is to effectively teach the concept of “design.” The design process is very broad and involves a wide range of activities, from abstract thinking to detailed modeling and calculations. In Engineering Design, author Rudolph J. Eggert presents a well-structured and thorough overview of engineering design concepts and methods. A major strength of this book is the presentation of the overall design process, the illustration of the systematic concepts that are involved in every phase of design, and definitions of the terms that are used in design. The author has experience with various organizations, including General Electric, Fisher-Price Toys, Wurlitzer, and the New York State Energy and Development Authority, and that experience with the design process no doubt contributed to the effective organization of this text. The author states that this is a text for undergraduate or firstyear graduate engineering students. He also states that the book has a focus of integrating engineering design with topics about the business of manufacturing. This reviewer teaches civil engineering. In my opinion this textbook might be particularly appropriate for use in senior-level capstone design courses. It is my observation that engineering educators are very good at teaching the science of design. By this I mean they are good at making appropriate engineering calculations once a design concept has been established. However, the more abstract processes of design, such as developing an initial design concept or working with customers, are not as easy to teach. The strength of this textbook is its presentation of a coherent structure for understanding the more abstract processes. In this book Rudolph Eggert provides a systematic description for every phase of the design process. Chapter 3 gives an example of the design of a motorcycle that clearly illustrates the steps involved in developing design concepts. Other examples in the text also use items that students can relate to, including the design of a coffee pot and the manufacturing of bicycles. The discussion of customer satisfaction curves, in Chapters 3 and 8, is particularly useful in terms of providing the basis for the concepts of performance functions and ultimately multicriteria decision analysis techniques. These tools provide a basis for both guiding decisions as well as documenting decisions made during the design process. Chapter 10 covers topics of design failure, safety, and environment that it is crucial to present to engineering students. Finally, Chapter 14 on Projects, Teamwork, and Ethics has some very useful material. While I believe that this would be a textbook strongly worth considering for an engineering capstone design course, as a civil engineer I would have liked some detailed examples of design that relate to large, one-of-a-kind projects. While the material

BACKGROUND Capstone design courses seek to prepare engineering students for industry by challenging student teams to solve real-world problems. To improve this preparation, university programs have recently focused on creating multidisciplinary teams. However, there is limited quantitative evidence showing that multidisciplinary student engineering teams develop higher quality projects or are better prepared for the work force.

The purpose of this study is to examine how industry sponsors influence student engagement in mechanical engineering capstone design courses. While sponsor partnerships are intended to enhance the authenticity of capstone experiences, their involvement can shape how students participate in and value design activities. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, we analyzed semi-structured interviews with nine students from two industry-sponsored capstone teams selected for their contrasting sponsor interactions. Findings indicate that sponsors affect engagement through structural mechanisms (namely, role assignment, role enactment, and influence over design processes), and relational mechanisms (communication practices and investment in student success). High-autonomy role selection, flexible role boundaries, and opportunities for design agency-supported engagement, ownership, and alignment with professional practice. In contrast, sponsor-imposed roles, rigid task boundaries, limited decision-making authority, and low responsiveness often led to frustration, reduced ownership, and disengagement. We conclude that sponsor preparation is critical for supporting student engagement in capstone design. Providing sponsors with clear guidelines to promote student agency, facilitate collaboration, and maintain meaningful communication can help ensure that industry partnerships serve both the educational and professional goals of capstone.

The increased power and functionality of modern microcontrollers provides both an opportunity and a challenge to educators. Increased complexity, the necessity of integrating a hands-on lab experience, and downward pressure on total curriculum hours demand a significant investment of time to modernize microcontroller education, which few educators can afford. However, a successful microcontrollers course provides a unique opportunity to equip students to produce large, complex systems in their capstone design course. This paper details the evolution of an approach which provides an integrated course and laboratory experience for students. Results of these changes produced quantitative differences in the resulting capstone design courses, validating the approach.

1 INTRODUCTION Design education usually employs project-based learning, in which students learn to research, plan, design and reflect on the creation of technological projects [1], [2]. Student experience issues may influence students' design process, as well as their perception of professional knowledge development. Studies have pointed out students are ill-informed about design education when entering university [3]. In the field of design, although there have been student surveys to analyze design thinking skills and for assessing design literacy. However, these studies are primarily assessment tools, and do not investigate students’ attitudes or experiences of their design courses. While several studies focus on measuring students’ cognitive knowledge, assessments of affective variables, such as attitude, are far fewer in number. The objective of this study was to investigate student experiences, specifically the issues and challenges faced by students in three foundational design courses – focusing on introductory design, architectural design and engineering design – at the . We investigate issues such as how do students experience various instruction modes such as lectures and studio; and their experience of working individually or as teams in the three foundational design courses. 2 METHOD We conducted a survey in three foundational design courses, in both online and paper format. The survey comprised quantitative and qualitative components. Respondents consisted of 248 students from the introductory design course, 48 students from the introductory architectural design course and 71 students from the engineering design course. Respondents rated their perceptions on 23 items in two types of questions: Likert, semantic differential. Additionally, they provided their input in two open-ended questions. 3 RESULTS A principal component analysis conducted on the data revealed five factors that primarily contributed to students’ perception of foundational design courses: (1) the fun aspects of design, (2) the stressful aspects of design, (3) Course Pressures, (4) Student temperament issues, (5) Teamwork experience. Performance pressures majorly affected student experience in all three courses. The architectural design course was seen to be the most enjoyable for students, as fun scores were higher than the stress scores, and low course pressures. The engineering design course was observed to be very stressful for students, with low scores for fun. 4 SIGNIFICANCE Student perception of foundational design courses is important because it can be used to drive forward changes in curriculum and pedagogy. While this study uses data from one university, the issues reported here are generic and relevant for instructors developing design courses across different parts of the world. Research in student experience and perspectives is crucial to develop design education and propel it into the future. REFERENCES [1] Y. Doppelt, “Assessing creative thinking in design-based learning,” International Journal of Technology and Design Education, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 55–65, 2009, [2] N. Lee, “Project methods as the vehicle for learning in undergraduate design education: a typology,” Design Studies, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 541–560, Sep. 2009, [3] A. B. Gencosmanoglu, “Learning, teaching and administration in design education: DESIGNtrain Project: Training tools for developing design education,” in Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2010.