Purpose: This study explored students' experiences of creative problem-solving using a design thinking approach in higher education, mainly focusing on the importance of empathetic approach in the problem identification and definition phase. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a descriptive qualitative research design and thematic…

Contribution: The study characterizes aspects of cognitive and metacognitive dimensions of team cognition of software development teams in educational settings. Background: The software development industry requires software engineers and developers to work in teams; for this, there is substantial research on teamwork in the context of the…

As students gain more experience with design concepts, they should progress from novice to expert design thinkers. The purpose of this research was to identify the constructs of growth in design thinking (DT) over short- (one weekend) and long-term (10 weeks) design challenges. A DT mindset questionnaire was completed by students in a third-year…

Collaborative creativity is an essential skill for unleashing university students' skills in team building during complex problem-solving. The aim of this descriptive quantitative research was to examine undergraduate students' perspectives regarding their collaborative creativity experience as game creators for a gamification group assignment…

The design of biological systems is a multidisciplinary activity in which biomedical engineers collaborate to build novel biological systems that address society's needs. One of the most relevant skills for designing biological systems is engineering systems thinking (EST). Among the EST elements, the EST cognitive competencies are comparatively…

Development of team skills is vital to becoming a successful and productive engineer. To prepare students for successful team-based work, they need a basic understanding of the organizational psychology underpinning teamwork and an introduction to tools and techniques to develop and sustain team effectiveness. The goal of this paper is to…

There is increasing interest in the application of game-based learning approaches to education. Educators across a wide range of contexts are using digital games such as educational escape rooms to promote learner motivation and support skills development. Whilst the literature describes multiple game-based learning theories that can underpin such…

Background: Students' academic self-efficacy maximizes likelihood for success and retention, yet prior research suggests that historically underrepresented (minoritized) undergraduate students in higher education and in college-level engineering show lower self-efficacy, which has been linked to histories of systemic exclusion. To address such…

This article aims to present our experience with transmedia storytelling in the design of materials selection, integrating two disciplines within an undergraduate mechanical engineering curriculum in Brazil. The students' project involved developing a narrative within the fictional universe of superheroes while exploring material properties using…

Argumentation and metacognitive reflection are required for effective thinking and convincing argumentation in engineering co-design. This study investigated engineering students' argumentation and metacognitive reflection in their final group reports and their correlation with the quality of their work in co-design. The groups practiced and…

This grounded theory research examined the actions mentors take to help student teams. We interviewed nine mentors from an engineering competition using semi-structured interviews. We studied the interactions between mentors and student teams and identified nine mentoring actions: initiating the relationship, strategies to develop thinking, active…

In an attempt to resolve some of the gaps associated with the pedagogical integration of teamwork in design curricula, this article seeks to share a model for learning teamwork skills. This model is the result of a multiple case study methodology based on the learning experiences of 22 design students. Data was collected during various team…

Based on our positive, but limited experience with Jigsaw at the university level, half a year ago we initiated a more extensive experiment with a larger sample of students, and incorporating changes that relate back to some negative comments we have received during the previous course. Jigsaw is a collaborative inquiry-based learning technique…

Contribution: While design project courses offer first-year students a practical introduction to engineering, a portion of class time is usually spent on lecturing foundational knowledge instead of practicing engineering design. This article presents a blended design-based learning (bDBL) approach that makes class time more efficient and explores…

There is ongoing interest in developing rigorous and accurate assessment methods in higher education, particularly in the use of assessment rubrics and in providing more useful feedback to students rather than a simple grade. However, there has been little used of reliable assessment rubrics that provide feedback to individual students on their…