Towards A Conceptual Model Of Design Team Learning In Mechanical Engineering Education

Design education is the backbone of the undergraduate Mechanical Engineering (ME) curriculum at Lassonde School of Engineering (LSE). ME students take project-based design courses every year of their program. Students in the design courses were surveyed and interviewed, in order to examine the key learning outcomes and their development over the undergraduate years. Early-stage coding and analysis on the interview data have resulted in (1) the identification of possible threshold concepts in each year of project-based design learning, (2) the variation and changes in the meaning of design across cohorts, and (3) the three-level factors to design team success. Recommendations are proposed for the instructional training and course structure to enhance their support for design team project experience and outcomes.