How to approach an interdisciplinary engineering problem: Characterizing undergraduate engineering students´ perceptions

Interdisciplinary undergraduate engineering programs have increased in importance and significance over the past decade. To understand the strengths and weaknesses of these interdisciplinary courses and programs, it is important to examine how students´ perceptions develop through the duration of the course or program, specifically in regards to their approach to an interdisciplinary engineering problem. The overall purpose of this research is to assess second-year undergraduate engineering students´ perceptions of interdisciplinary engineering work. In this study, students applied their knowledge to a real-world design problem. Students´ responses were analyzed using verbal protocol analysis and a pre-defined coding scheme, which focused on four dimensions of interdisciplinary understanding. While the quantitative analysis does not reveal many statistically significant associations, these results reinforced those published in previous studies. Qualitative analysis of the data identified trends due to gender effects and interactions. In addition, the findings indicated students´ awareness of the interdisciplinary approach and the importance of team dynamics within interdisciplinary projects.