Wicked Problems in Engineering Education

Author(s):

Johanna Lönngren(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

30. Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

30 SES 05 B, ESD Learning in Higher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-23

13:30-15:00

Room:

K6.18

Chair:

Matthias Barth

Contribution

Since the 1970s, there has been a strong interest in the Environmental and Sustainability Education Research (ESER) community in how to prepare students to address complex environmental and sustainability problems (Sauvé, 2005), such as wicked problems (WPs). WPs have been described as particularly ill-structured problems that lack single right solutions and that are characterized by a high degree of complexity, uncertainty and the presence of conflicting norms and values (Norton, 2005; Rittel & Webber, 1973). In the domain of Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE), examples of WPs are climate change, resource scarcity, and resource-related international conflict. At the 2016 ECER conference, two full symposia were devoted to research on WPs in ESE. Also in other fields, such as the field of Engineering Education Research, the concept of WPs is receiving increasing attention. However, more empirical research is needed to better understand how ESE and engineering education can prepare students to address WPs. Better understanding how to prepare students to address WPs is particularly important in the context of engineering education since engineering students may face discipline-specific challenges in addressing WPs, and since they typically learn to address well-structured problems rather than wicked problems (Jonassen, Strobel, & Beng Lee, 2006). In this contribution, I aim to contribute to the empirical and theoretical discussion on WPs in ESER and Engineering Education Research by providing a summary of my Ph.D. thesis on WPs in engineering education.

In the context of my Ph.D. research, my supervisors and I performed four research studies in which we investigated different aspects of WPs in engineering education. Studies 1 and 2 focused mainly on student learning, and studies 3 and 4 focused mainly on how to teach and assess students' ability to address WPs. In the first study, we used qualitative content analysis of student interviews to develop a conceptual framework to describe what it means to use multiple perspectives in discussions about WPs. Second, we used the same interview data in a phenomenographic study in which we described different approaches that engineering students used in addressing a WP. In the third study, we used a pragmatic action research approach to connect the results from studies 1 and 2 to teaching practice. In that study, we collaborated with engineering educators to develop a set of intended learning outcomes and assessment approaches related to students' ability to address WPs. Finally, we used a design-based research approach to develop, implement, and evaluate an approach to teaching and assessing an integrative understanding of WPs in an engineering education context. The research from these studies is reported in four journal papers and two conference papers (see references).

Based on the studies and a review of research literature from ESER, Engineering Education Research, and related fields, I will address the following questions in my presentation:

What do engineering students need to learn to be able to address WPs in a way that is in line with the general aims of ESE?
How can the ability to address WPs be taught and assessed in engineering education?

Method

Since each of the four studies had different objectives, we used different methodological approaches that build on different theoretical frameworks. Studies 1 and 2 are mainly grounded in the phenomenological principle of intentionality (Brentano, 2009). For these studies, we used the same empirical material from ten in-depth interviews with undergraduate engineering students. In study 1, we used a conventional, qualitative content analysis approach, and in study 2, we used a phenomenographic approach (Marton & Booth, 1997). The research questions that were addressed in studies 3 and 4 partly emerged from the results of studies 1 and 2. In study 3, we used a pragmatic action research approach (Johansson & Lindhult, 2008). We conducted interviews and workshops with engineering educators to develop intended learning outcomes related to students' approaches to wicked problems and assessment approaches for those learning outcomes. Finally, in the fourth study, we used a design-based research approach (McKenney & Reeves, 2012) to implement some of the learning outcomes and assessment approaches developed in study 3 in a real educational context. For this purpose, we developed and evaluated an educational intervention for teaching engineering students to understand the nature of WPs, and an assessment rubric to assess students’ learning in the intervention. Both the intervention and the assessment rubric are theoretically grounded in the results of the first, second, and third study. To evaluate the intervention and the rubric, we used a mixed-methods approach in which we collected and analyzed a wide range of qualitative and quantitative data, including student performance data, teacher observation notes, student and expert feedback, and data from focus group interviews with students. We evaluated the rubric in terms of reliability, validity, and utility. We evaluated the intervention in terms of how students performed, how students approached the learning tasks during the intervention, and what affordances for learning emerged in different parts of the intervention in which different kinds and levels of scaffolding (as described by van de Pol, Volman, and Beizhuisen, 2010) were used. In my presentation, I will shortly report on the results of these four research studies. Acknowledging limitations due to the presence of different theoretical and methodological approach in the studies, I will also discuss how the results from the four studies might be combined to generate broader insights about more general questions related to wicked problems in engineering education.

Expected Outcomes

In the first study, we developed a conceptual framework for describing what it means to use multiple perspectives in discussions about WPs. We further identified the need to not only shift between multiple perspectives but also integrate those perspectives when addressing WPs. In the second study, we described four qualitatively different ways of approaching a WP. We identified one of these approaches, a fully integrative approach, as most in line with the general aims of ESE. In the third study, we develop intended learning outcomes and assessment approaches related to students' ability to address WPs. Finally, in the fourth study, we developed an analytic rubric to assess students’ written responses to WPs and an educational intervention in which the rubric was used. In that study, we found that the rubric provided opportunities for students to learn to understand the nature of WPs and to craft written responses to WPs. We also found that the rubric could be used to assess that learning and that it also was useful for teacher training and formative assessment. However, we also found that the rubric may have provided too much cognitive scaffolding, thus excessively guiding the process of responding to WPs and not supporting deep engagement with the wickedness of the process of addressing WPs. In conclusion, we suggested that preparing students to address WPs may require limiting the amount of cognitive scaffolding, even when students express frustration about the presence of uncertainty and value conflicts and a lack of clear directions and definite answers. We further suggested that future research should investigate the relationship between cognitive and affective scaffolding, for example, whether it could be possible to replace some cognitive scaffolding with affective scaffolding to limit the negative effects of students’ frustration without having to tame the process of addressing WPs.

References

Brentano, F. (2009). Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. (L. L. McAlister, Ed., A. C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell, & L. L. McAlister, Trans.) London and New York. Johansson, A. W., & Lindhult, E. (2008). Emancipation of workability? Critical versus pragmatic scientific orientation in action research. Action Research, 6 (1), pp. 95-115. Jonassen, D., Strobel, J., & Beng Lee, C. (2006). Everyday Problem Solving in Engineering: Lessons for Engineering Educators. Journal of Engineering Education, 92 (2), pp. 139-151. Lönngren, J., & Svanström, M. (2015). Assessing "Wicked Sustainability Problem"-Literacy in Engineering Education. Proceedings of the 122nd ASEE Annual Conference & Exhibition. Seattle: American Society for Engineering Education. Lönngren, J., Adawi, T., & Svanström, M. (2017). Assessing engineering students’ written responses to wicked problems: Reliability, validity and utility of an analytic rubric. 7th Research on Engineering Education Symposium. Bogota. Lönngren, J., Adawi, T., & Svanström, M. (2017). Scaffolding strategies and affordances for learning in a rubric-based intervention to promote engineering students’ ability to address wicked problems. Lönngren, J., Adawi, T., & Svanström, M. (forthcoming). Teaching an understanding of the nature of wicked problems: In which order should characteristics of wicked problems be introduced in engineering education? Lönngren, J., Ingerman, Å., & Svanström, M. (2016). Avoid, Control, Succumb, or Balance: Engineering Students’ Approaches to a Wicked Sustainability Problem. Research in Science Education. Lönngren, J., Svanström, M., Ingerman, Å., & Holmberg, J. (2016). Dealing with the multidimensionality of sustainability through the use of multiple perspectives - a theoretical framework. European Journal of Engineering Education , 41 (3), pp. 342-352. Marton, F., & Booth, S. (1997). Learning and Awareness. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. McKenney, S., & Reeves, T. C. (2012). Conducting educational design research. London: Routledge. Norton, B. G. (2012). The Ways of Wickedness: Analyzing Messiness with Messy Tools. Journal of Agricultural Environmental Ethics, 25, pp. 447–465. Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. W. (1973). Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences , 4, pp. 155-169. Sauvé, L. (2005). Currents in Environmental Education: Mapping a Complex and Evolving Pedagogical Field. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 10, pp. 11-37. van de Pol, J., Volman, M., & Beishuizen, J. (2010). Scaffolding in Teacher–Student Interaction: A Decade of Research. Educational Psychology Review, 22, pp. 271–296.

Author Information

Johanna Lönngren (presenting / submitting)

Chalmers University of Technology

Applied ID, Division of Engineering Education Research

Sävedalen

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