Comparing freshman and senior engineering design processes: an in-depth follow-up study

In this paper we report the results of an in-depth study of engineering student approaches to open-ended design problems. We collected verbal protocols from 61 senior (fourth year) engineering students and reanalyzed protocols from 32 freshman (first year) engineering students as they worked on two design problems. The design processes of these student groups were compared. Results show that seniors produced higher quality solutions, spent more time solving the problem, considered more alternative solutions and made more transitions between design steps than the freshmen. This dataset also includes protocols for 18 within-subject participants. These students participated in the study first as freshmen and later as seniors, affording us the opportunity to compare design process changes over time on the individual student level. Finally, this paper includes results for design process differences across the two design problems.