(Re)Constructing the Professional Formation of Engineers: A Human-Centered Model of Communication Design

David H Torres, Purdue University

Abstract

This study introduced a design-inspired approach to unpack problems of professional formation of engineers: 1) the gap between what students learn in universities and what they practice upon graduation; 2) the perception that engineering is solely technical, math, and theory oriented; and 3) the lack of diversity and inclusion (incorporation of difference in perspectives, values, and ways of thinking and being engineers) in many engineering programs. The current project investigated the discursive practices and institutional processes that contributed to or inhibited innovative and inclusive professional formation within an undergraduate engineering setting. Specifically, this project showed how Grounded Practical Theory (GPT), Communication as Design (CaD), and Human-Centered Design (HCD) offer alternative pathways to conceptualize the processes of professional formation.The context for this study involved the professional formation of engineers at a School of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at a large, Midwestern university. Participants for this study included undergraduate students and faculty, staff, and administration (FSA). Semi-structured interview data was collected and explored participants’ descriptions, accounts, and experiences related to professional engineering formation in BME. Data collection included 33 total interviews including 15 FSA and 18 student interviews. The study involved an empirical examination of discursive practices that invoked, reproduced, and maintained discourses of professional engineering at the BME school.Based on insights gained from the empirical examination of discursive practices, a GPT framework was applied to examine conflicts in professional formation, strategies participants used to overcome these challenges, and the underlying rationale for these strategies. Specifically, the goal of gaining a broad knowledge base—incorporating expertise across various engineering and science disciplines—often can come at the expense of realizing specific application and technical know-how. For many participants, both goals were critical for becoming a professional biomedical engineer but often times blocked a discourse of professional formation that was innovative and inclusive. Participants revealed that a standard lecture curriculum influenced this tension, in many cases for the worse. However, findings suggested that strategies for overcoming these conflicts were by integrating lecture curricula with more active learning formats (e.g., undergraduate research, lab participation). Moreover, findings showed how standard lecture communication designs shaped and maintained a discourse community more likely to emphasize understanding engineering as a science and also gaining a broad knowledge base often times at the expense of realizing specific application and technical know-how.This study’s analysis offers several theoretical contributions. First, GPT pointed to the deeply integrated relationship between the ontological and epistemological foundations of biomedical engineering professional formation. That is, becoming a biomedical engineer meant having knowledge of several sets of disciplinary expertise while also understanding when and how to enact this knowledge in practice. Second, professional formation designs for communication (e.g., lecture designs, active learning designs) presupposed something about the recurrent practices held within the school and how these recurrent practices constituted professional ontology and epistemology in ways that were both enabling and problematic, Third, and from a HCD perspective, exploring designs for communication brought to life the ways participants, through interactivity, actively designed discourses of professional formation in an attempt to achieve and meet their epistemological and ontological goals.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Brightman, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Curriculum development

COinS