The ability to innovate in engineering is essential in current rapidly evolving technological landscape. Many efforts have been made and programs have been developed in engineering education to support student innovation. Yet, research on how engineering students’ approach and experience innovation has been limited. In this CAREER project we conducted a series of empirical studies using interviews, think-aloud protocols, and surveys to examine engineering students’ innovation skills, views of innovation process, and experiences that support their development of innovative competencies. Informed by these studies as well as the broader body of literature, we developed a framework for engineering student innovation that can guide instructional practices that support student innovation. In this paper, we present this framework with supporting evidence from recent and ongoing studies.
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0784-6079
Purdue University, West Lafayette (College of Engineering)
[biography]
Senay Purzer is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering Education. She is the recipient of a 2012 NSF CAREER award, which examines how engineering students approach innovation. She serves on the editorial boards of Science Education and the Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education (JPEER). She received a B.S.E with distinction in Engineering in 2009 and a B.S. degree in Physics Education in 1999. Her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees are in Science Education from Arizona State University earned in 2002 and 2008, respectively.
Nicholas D. Fila is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University. He earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Purdue University. His research interests include empathy, ethics, design thinking, and course design.
I am a sophomore in mechanical engineering at Purdue University. I am currently working as an undergraduate research assistant for the Engineering Education department through INSPIRE.
Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.