DocumentCode :
3653572
Title :
Cultures of innovation among chemical, civil, and mechanical engineering students: A qualitative study
Author :
Nicholas D. Fila;Şenay Purzer;Rami Chakroun
Author_Institution :
School of Engineering Education, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
fYear :
2014
Firstpage :
1
Lastpage :
7
Abstract :
Innovation has received particular emphasis in engineering education due to implications of global challenges, diverse human needs, and economic competitiveness. As such, many instructors explore new methods to help engineering students develop innovation-related competencies and researchers seek to understand how students connect with and learn about innovation. This study adds to that growing knowledge base by investigating the ways engineering students in different disciplines view and approach engineering innovation. Nine students in chemical, civil, and mechanical engineering participated in a two-hour laboratory protocol consisting of an idea generation task, a process mapping task, and a semi-structured interview. This qualitative study used a multiple case analysis approach to compare student perspectives in each discipline. Analysis revealed that students in each discipline demonstrated different perspectives along nine aspects of innovation: context, criteria, stakeholder involvement, teamwork, design process, iteration, knowledge, challenges, and personal motivation. These differences link to core aspects of each discipline. Since a qualitative approach with a localized sample was used, this work does not explain all differences or the extent to which they manifest, but this paper contributes to an emerging understanding of how work in different engineering disciplines can connect with innovation from a student perspective.
Keywords :
"Technological innovation","Context","Chemicals","Mechanical engineering","Chemical engineering","Knowledge engineering","Civil engineering"
Publisher :
ieee
Conference_Titel :
Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 2014 IEEE
ISSN :
0190-5848
Electronic_ISBN :
2377-634X
Type :
conf
DOI :
10.1109/FIE.2014.7044147
Filename :
7044147
Link To Document :
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