November, 2005

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Exploring the Realities of Professional Practice:

Implications for Engineering Education

Dr Llewellyn MannBE (Mech & Space) Hons, BSc (Physics), GCEd

(Higher Ed), PhD (Engineering Education)

The University of QueenslandPurdue University

Central Queensland University

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Overview of seminar

• The Challenge• The Way• The Story so Far• The Plan• The Future

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The Challenge

What are professional abilities and skills that are:

• Essential for the current global workforce and the ‘flat world’

• Not widely developed by students at the moment• Will enable engineering graduates to meet the

challenges of the 21st century

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The Challenge

Six right brain "senses," to complement our left brain, analytic skills. We need to realize the value of:

• not just function, but also design. • not just argument, but also story. • not just focus, but also symphony. • not just logic, but also empathy. • not just seriousness, but also play. • not just accumulation, but also meaning.

Further a final conceptual age skill to Pink's list:

• not just knowledge, but also learning.

(Pink 2005)

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The Challenge – We need…

• creative researchers, developers, and entrepreneurs who can help their companies stay ahead of the technology development curve;

• designers capable of creating products that are attractive as well as functional;

• holistic, multidisciplinary thinkers who can recognize complex patterns and opportunities in the global economy and formulate strategies to capitalize on them;

• people with strong interpersonal skills that equip them to establish and maintain good relationships with current and potential customers and commercial partners;

• people with the language skills and cultural awareness needed to build bridges between companies and workers in developing nations (where many manufacturing facilities and jobs are migrating) and developed nations (where many customers and consumers will continue to be located);

• self-directed learners, who can keep acquiring the new knowledge and skills they need to stay abreast of rapidly changing technological and economic conditions.

(Felder 2006)

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The Challenge – What Abilities and Skills?

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The WayWe need to find out how to deal with these challenges from the people who are dealing

with them daily at the moment!

Practice, not theoryExperiences of those in practiceFrom their point of view

Looking at variation between practitioners’

experiences

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The Way – Focus on variation

• Different people experience aspects of practice in different ways– Different contexts, cultures, backgrounds, previous

experiences

• The more variation discerned and experienced, the more comprehensive our understanding can become BUT is never going to be complete

Need to look at variation among practitioners’ experiences to build bigger picture of those

aspects

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The Way - Research method

Phenomenography• Investigating qualitative variations in people’s

experiences of an aspect of the world (Marton 1986)

• Interpretive research tradition since mid-70s• Revealed ‘surface’ and ‘deep’ approaches to

learning• Used in fields of study such as chemistry, health

science, education, management, physics and engineering

• Involves interviewing people about their experiences with the aspect of the world of interest

• Participants chosen to obtain the largest diversity of experiences

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The Way - Object of study

Researcher

SubjectsAspect of the

World

Relation between researcher &

subjects

Relation between researcher & an

aspect of the worldObject of

Study

Relation between subjects & an aspect of the world

(Bowden 2005)

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The Way - Phenomenography points of departure

e.g. thematic analysis

(Trigwell 2000)

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The Way – What Other Ways?

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The Story so Far

Cross-Disciplinary

Practice

Sustainable Design

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The Story so Far – Sustainable Design• Interviewed 22 practising design professionals

– All had experiences of sustainable design– 14 engineers and 8 non-engineers– Worked in engineering operations – Australian

context– Were recognised by others as people of interest– Chosen to obtain largest diversity of experiences

possible – not statistically representative– 7 female and 15 male– Years of experience with design

• 6 with < 5; 8 with 5 -> 15; 8 with +16

– Range of industry sectors• 5 Construction; 10 Community Building; 5 Resources; 5

Product; 6 Individual; 7 Education

• Interviews lasted between 40 and 80 minutes• Digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim• Analysed using Phenomenography

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Five different ways of experiencing sustainable design

1. Sustainable design is solution finding2. Sustainable design is reductionist

problem solving3. Sustainable design is holistic problem

solving4. Sustainable design is social network

problem solving5. Sustainable design is a way of life

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1. Sustainable design is solution finding

Declared Requirements

Physical ProductClient

Solution Finding

Environment

Economy

Decrease -ve impact

Society

Technical & Human

Processes

Sustainable design is finding a solution, either a product or process(es), to satisfy a client’s declared

requirements while decreasing the associated environmental, social and economic impacts.

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2. Sustainable design is reductionist problem solving

Problem I dentification

Problem SolvingReductionist

Environment

Economy

Decrease -ve impact

Society

Problem

Client Physical Product

Technical & Human

Processes

Sustainable design is the process of identifying and solving a client’s problem by making separate decisions that each decrease the associated environmental, social and economic impact.

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3. Sustainable design is holistic problem solving

Sustainable design is the process of identifying and solving a client’s problem holistically on a systems level,

to increase the environmental, social and economic value of the solution.

Problem SolvingHolistic

Problem I dentification

Environment

Economy

I ncrease +ve value

Society

Problem

Client Physical Product

Technical & Human

Processes

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4. Sustainable design is social network problem solving

Client

Society

Problem I dentification

Environment

Economy

I ncrease +ve value

Problem SolvingHolistic

Physical Product

Technical & Human

ProcessesProblem

Sustainable design is the process of identifying and solving a client’s problem, embedded within a wider societal context to increase the environmental, social and economic value of the

solution to both the client and society.

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5. Sustainable design is a way of life

Client

Society

Problem I dentification

Environment

Economy

I ncrease +ve value

Problem SolvingHolistic

Physical Product

Technical & Human

ProcessesProblem

Per

son

al F

ram

ewor

k

Sustainable design is a way of approaching life where all the activities engaged in aim to increase the environmental, social and economic value of the

outcome to both the individual and society.

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Relationships between categories of description

Solution Finding

Reductionist Problem Solving

Holistic Problem Solving

Social Network Problem Solving

A Way of Life

Solution Focused

Problem Focused

Social Network Focused

Problem Approach

Holistic Approach

Social Approach

Professional -Personal Approach

Variations Between Categories of Description

Focu

s W

ithin

Cat

egor

ies

of D

escr

iptio

n

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The Story so Far – Cross-disciplinary Practice (Current)• Interviewed 22 cross-disciplinary practitioners

– All had experiences of cross-disciplinarity– 15 engineers and 7 non-engineers– Worked in various sectors – US context– Many recognised by others as people of interest– Chosen to obtain largest diversity of experiences

possible – not statistically representative– 10 female and 12 male– Years of experience with cross-disciplinarity

• 4 with < 5; 5 with 5 -> 15; 13 with +16

– Diverse epistemological distances and project sizes

• Interviews lasted between 25 and 50 minutes• Digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim• Analysing using both phenomenography and

thematic analysis

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The Story so Far – Cross-disciplinary Practice

Scale of Projects

Epis

tem

olo

gic

al

Dis

tan

ce

1 5 10 50 100

1

2

3

4

5

U

S

E

JI

MT

H

A D

O

W

P

Y

G

XK

B

N

R

L

F

<5 6->15 >15Years of Experience:

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The Story so Far – Emerging Themes• Communication

– Difficulty communicating between disciplines makes collaborating hard, but

– Can’t over simplify when talking about complex problems

• Personal investment to work cross-disciplinary

• Focus on problems that require a cross-disciplinary approach– Can’t approach from a purely disciplinary

direction

• Develops into part of their identity– Not only do they like it but it’s

who they are

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The Plan

Exploring other professional skills

Translating findings into engineering

education

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The Plan – Translating findings into practice

Recent natural disasters (e.g., tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, and floods) were a hot topic at the 2006 International Conference on Predicting and Responding to Natural Disasters last month. The conference brought in people with diverse backgrounds from around the world, particularly those who live or work in “disaster-plagued” areas.

At the end of the conference, you were asked to bring together a team that would focus on developing new ideas for a “disaster response system” for tornadoes in Tippecanoe County.

1. What issues do you think are important to consider?

2. Who would you want on your team? For each team member identify the expertise they would bring and how (or when) they would contribute to the project.

Cross-disciplinary Disaster Response Scenario

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Prevent

Prevent/Treament

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Up and running

Restore

Restore/Prevent

All time

Count of Temporal-based category

Functional category

Temporal-based category

Functional category versus Temporal based category

The Plan – Translating findings into practice

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The Plan – Translating findings into practice – How else?

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The Future

•Continued collaboration on cross-disciplinary practice & develop close links with practitioners both in Australia and internationally– Workshops – face to face– Virtual research group – play across data set

•Expand focus to include other skills such as cross-cultural awareness, negotiation & storytelling etc

•Key – integrate ‘practice’ perspective into engineering education

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Questions