Technical Rationality in Engineering Student Teams: Critical to Team Performance or A Barrier to Students’ Learning?

Abstract

The National Engineering Education Research Colloquies recommended research on “engineering epistemologies” which, entails examining engineering beliefs, values, knowledge, and ways of thinking, knowing, and doing, as a key area for future research for defining the discipline. In engineering design education, examining epistemological beliefs is important since students’ epistemological beliefs inform how they understand problems, approach the problem-solving process, generate ideas, and evaluate prospective solutions. While engineering has historically derived its legitimacy by a steadfast elevation of epistemic values such as scientific objectivity, value-neutrality, depoliticization, and technical rationality, recently scholars have acknowledged that the elevation of these epistemic ideals comes with social and technical consequences. This talk will focus on the consequences students’ elevation of scientific objectivity, value-neutrality, depoliticization, and technical rationality has on their learning opportunities in team-based engineering design settings. In particular, I will discuss how engineering’s ubiquitous epistemic values shape students’ design thinking at the individual level, as well as how dominant epistemic values shape team interactions, idea selection, and design decision making.

Bio:

Dr. Trevion Henderson is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Tufts University. He also holds secondary appointments in the STEM Education program in the Department of Education and the Institute for Research on Learning and Instruction (IRLI) He earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Michigan, as well as his M.A. in Higher Education and Student Affairs and his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from The Ohio State University. Dr. Henderson’s research is broadly concerned with how students’ in- and out-of-classroom experiences affect their learning, focusing particularly on the ways that the culture of engineering education produces and reifies systems of inequality. Dr. Henderson teaches courses on engineering design education, computing in engineering, and education research methods.

Please join meeting in Cummings 270 or via Zoom.

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Meeting ID: 960 3825 1227

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Meeting ID: 960 3825 1227

Passcode: see colloquium email