Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) Página 369 de 957
McGarry (2000) extended this observation finding that engineering designers rely heavily
on tactile and visual cues for design and commonly use physical props to think through
design problems and communicate ideas. Objects are also used to model concepts,
illustrate thinking, spark ideas, test assumptions, and prototype solutions.
Other studies go further and argue that the role of artefacts in engineering goes beyond
scaffolding design work. In their paper on the role of artefacts in design work, Perry and
Sanderson argue that design work can no longer be adequately conceptualized in terms of
individual “intelligence”, nor as a linear process with a set of design stages. It is rather as a
situation in which joint, co-ordinated learning and work practices evolve, and in which
artefacts help to mediate and organize communication. Therefore artefacts form a part of
the process of product design whilst at the same time orienting the participants to the cooperative
aspect of their work and revealing information about their “location” within the
process, and who has acted on them (1998). Another look at the relationship between
engineers and artefacts using situated cognition theory to examine product dissection
found that the presence of artefacts increased creativity among engineers (Grantham et al,
2010; Dalrymple, 2011).
Artefacts obviously play a complex, extremely important role in engineering and engineers
have a unique relationship to them. This special relationship is one of the reasons students
commonly express to explain their interest in engineering; many students when asked
why they chose to pursue engineering speak of “wanting to take things apart” or “being
good with their hands”. It follows then that there might be certain personality traits or
dispositions that we will refer to as “perceptuality” within these individuals that attracts
them specifically to things and consequently engineering. Attempts have been made to
define this trait, for example through measuring mechanical and spatial aptitude, but
arguably these are facets that do not fully define it. In this research we propose that thing
orientation is another facet of this construct and try to investigate thing orientation and
situate it within the set of acknowledged individual differences.
Background
Our approach is based on the assumption that artefacts are in fact representations of
mental processes; so in essence artefacts are human thought expressed through material
transformation (Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2009). Therefore these artefacts are not neutral but
implicitly or explicitly communicate the experience, imagination and purpose of their
creator and are part of an activity system (Vermaas & Houkes, 2006). Thus artefacts are
tools of inter-subjectivity (linking one mind to another), bringing together both
individuals and the environment.
While artefacts are tools of inter and intra personal connection, it must be recognized that
they are outside of the person and belong to the environment in the person-environment
dichotomy. However, because of their functional nature, they form a special class within
the environment that here are referred to as “things”. It is therefore logical when pursuing
an investigation of perceptuality, to examine both the person and the thing. Investigations
of this dichotomy have been a recurring theme starting with Thorndyke in 1911 and
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011