How do undergraduate engineering students conceptualize product design? An analysis of two third-year design courses

Background Engineering education traditionally emphasizes technical skills, sometimes at the cost of under-preparing graduates for the real-world engineering context. In recent decades, attempts to address this issue include increasing project-based assignments and engineering design courses in curricula; however, a skills gap between education and industry remains. Purpose/Hypothesis This study aims to understand how undergraduate engineering students perceive product design before and after an upper-level project-based design course, as measured through concept maps. The purpose is to measure whether and how students account for the technical and nontechnical elements of design, as well as how a third-year design course influences these design perceptions. Design/Method Concept maps about product design were collected from 105 third-year engineering students at the beginning and end of a design course. Each concept map's content and structure were quantitatively analyzed to evaluate the students' conceptual understandings and compare them across disciplines in the before and after conditions. Results The analyses report on how student conceptions differ by discipline at the outset and how they changed after taking the course. Mechanical Engineering students showed a decrease in business-related content and an increased focus on societal content, while students in the Engineering Management and Industrial and Systems Engineering programs showed an increase in business topics, specifically market-related content. Conclusion This study reveals how undergraduate students conceptualize product design, and specifically to what extent they consider engineering, business, and societal factors. The design courses were shown to significantly shape student conceptualizations of product design, and they did so in a way that mirrored the topics in the course syllabi. The findings offer insights into the education-practice skills gap and may help future educators to better prepare engineering students to meet industry needs.