Design processes can be decomposed into several steps, including information acquisition and application. Retrieving prior knowledge and experience is an important method of acquiring design information, thus designers' precedents retrieval styles reflect their design thinking. The obvious difference between industrial (ID) and mechanical design (MD) education is well known: ID education focuses on cultivating design thinking abilities, while MD education focuses on cultivating technical abilities. The background discipline influences design thinking methods. This study aims at exploring the similarities and differences between ID and MD students' precedents retrieval styles in the design process. Forty-eight junior and senior undergraduate students participated in a brainstorming experiment using the think-aloud method. Participants' prior knowledge and experience retrieved during brainstorming were coded and the frequency ratios were analyzed. We conclude that ID students are more inclined to extract and apply episodic precedents than MD students. Compared with semantic precedents, episodic precedents have a greater possibility for being applied to the final solution.