The project is investigating the impact of a systematic formal approach (Design Heuristics) for idea generation in design efforts in engineering education through a laboratory study, as well as in the context of existing engineering design courses. In one focus the team is characterizing the understanding engineering students have about concept generation, specifically how they approach it, what their goals are when they ideate, and what they believe makes it successful. In a second focus, they are assessing the solution creativity and quality and the solution set diversity of first-year engineering students when using Design Heuristics as compared to existing ideation methods (SCAMPER and Morphological Analysis) and students' own approaches. In the third focus, they are investigating the effects of Design Heuristics instruction on student ideation outcomes and conceptions of the ideation process over time using introductory engineering and senior capstone design courses that include a design project component. Finally, they are making the Design Heuristics approach and pedagogy available to engineering students and instructors through a guidebook for teaching idea generation with Design Heuristics and through a faculty workshop. The investigators are collecting data on the comparative effectiveness of the approaches and an external evaluator is reviewing the student selection and assignment, the appropriateness of the protocols, the fidelity of the interventions, and the coding, analysis, and interpretation of the data. Broader impacts include a strong dissemination plan with a faculty development workshop to inform others of the approach.
