Nature-inspired designs/organic designs exhibit a very close resemblance with nature especially in terms of form and structure. Form giving for organic design is a special class of design problem that involves the use of inspiration and analogies from nature for creative problem-solving. There is insufficient research in understanding this…

This paper presents the results of a 2-year longitudinal study aimed at characterizing and comparing the design cognition of high school students with and without formal engineering design experiences. The students--working as dyads--engaged in design-only sessions generating solutions in response to the same engineering design challenges. The…

With the growing complexity of design technology and the emergence of intelligent design assistance, architectural studio classes are facing a new pedagogical paradigm. The digital literacy of younger generations and availability of scientific simulation have the potential to transform the traditional master-apprentice model. In our experiment, we…

Background: Problem exploration includes identifying, framing, and defining design problems and bounding problem spaces. Intentional and unintentional changes in problem understanding naturally occur as designers explore design problems to create solutions. Through problem exploration, new perspectives on the problem can emerge along with new and…

Cultivating students' design abilities can be highly beneficial for the learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts, and development of higher-order thinking capabilities (National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council in STEM integration in k-12 education: status, prospects, and an agenda for…

Framing design problems and solutions has been recognised in design studies as a central designerly activity. Some recent findings with expert designers relate framing practices to problem-solution co-evolution and analogy use, two further widely recognised design strategies. We wanted to understand if interaction design novices also use…

Initiatives to integrate engineering design in the elementary science classroom have become increasingly evident in both national reform documents and classroom practice. Missing from these efforts is a purposeful attempt to capture students' designerly thinking and dialogues as they engage in the process. The purpose of this study was to…

The authors investigated the differences in using problem decomposition and problem recomposition between dyads of engineering experts, engineering seniors, and engineering freshmen. Participants worked in dyads to complete an engineering design challenge within 1 hour. The entire design process was video and audio recorded. After the design…

Empirical evidence on the way in which expert designers from different domains cognitively connect their internal processes with external resources is presented in the context of an extended cognition model. The article focuses briefly on the main trends in the extended design cognition theory and in particular on recent trends in information…

This paper introduces the notion that fixation and commitment while designing can be measured by studying the protocol of the design session. It is hypothesized that the dynamic entropy of the linkograph of the protocol provides the basis for such a measurement. The hypothesis is empirically tested using a design protocol and the results…

The internal design thinking behaviour of designers in the concept development has been an important issue of cognitive psychology. In this study, the design thinking process designers have in applying digital media and traditional paper in the early concept development stage was explored. Special focus was made on the structure and procedure of…

The Lawrence Hall of Science, a science center, seeks to replicate real-world engineering at the "Ingenuity in Action" exhibit, which consists of three open-ended challenges. These problems encourage children to engage in engineering design processes and problem-solving techniques through tinkering. We observed and interviewed 112…

The process of creating child-developed board games in a counseling setting may promote social, emotional, and behavioral development in children. Using this creative approach, counselors can actively work with children to address referred concerns and build skills that may generalize outside of counseling sessions. A description of the method is…

This exploratory study highlights certain differences in the way an expert and a novice engineer used their analyzing and generating skills while solving a fairly ill-structured design problem. The expert tends to use more inferences and elaboration when solving the design problem and the novice tend to use analysis that is focused on the…

The objective of this research was to explore the relationship between information access and design solution quality of high school students presented with an engineering design problem. This objective is encompassed in the research question driving this inquiry: How does information access impact the design process? This question has emerged in…