Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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allows educational programs to determine what impact their programs are having, and
what aspects of the educational program are most effective. Furthermore, this work
provides a model that can be adapted to a wide range of contexts of a research-informed
approach to assessment tool development, which is the focus of this paper.
Theoretical Frameworks
While no theoretical framework exists for human-centered design, related frameworks
were used to inform the research. Building on previous studies of design processes and
expert-novice differences, the goal of this study was to characterize the qualitatively
different ways in which the students experienced human-centered design. The
methodology selected for this study was phenomenography, a qualitative approach to
research in which the “unit of phenomenographic research is a way of experiencing
something, …, and the object of the research is the variation in ways of experiencing
phenomena” (Marton & Booth, 1997). Phenomenographic approach emerged from
recognition that the qualitatively different ways in which learners experienced or
understood a phenomenon were related to the qualitative differences in the outcome of
that learning (Marton, 1981; 1988). It is important to note that phenomenography is
different from phenomenology. Although both qualitative methods are concerned with
how a phenomenon is experienced, phenomenology investigates the essence of a
phenomenon whereas phenomenography seeks to understand the variation (Patton,
1990).
Phenomenography has been used to study a wide variety of phenomenon from students’
experience of learning object-oriented programming (Stamouli & Huggard, 2007) to the
quality of care in the psychiatric setting (Schroder, A., Ahlstrom, G., & Larsson, 2006).
Related to design, phenomenography has been used to explore sustainable design (Mann,
Radcliffe, & Dall'Alba, 2007), design students’ experience of engagement and creativity
(Reid & Solomonides, 2007), and the ways that design has been experienced by
professionals in a variety of disciplines (Daly, 2008).
The outcomes of phenomenographic study are the categories of description and outcome
space. Marton and Booth (1997) state that within that outcome space, “The qualitatively
different ways of experiencing a particular phenomenon, as a rule, form a hierarchy” (p.
125). This is based on the expectation that since the categories of description represent
the relationship between the phenomenon and the person experiencing the phenomenon,
the categories themselves should be logically connected through the experienced
phenomenon (Åkerlind, 2005). Furthermore, since phenomenography looks at the
variation within the sample group as a group, the outcome space provides a way to look at
the collective experience of the phenomenon versus the individual experience. As such, the
categories of description and outcome space provide a framework for rubrics and other
assessment tools.
Methodology
The phenomenographic study explored the variation of students’ experiences of humancentered
design in the context of “designing for others”. Students were recruited from a
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011