Pedagogical research on understanding and misconceptions of system design
by Rashmi Jain; Anithashree Chandrasekaran; George Elias
International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IJISE), Vol. 27, No. 4, 2017

Abstract: Systems engineering is a life cycle approach to engineering design: the integration of numerous technical and non-technical disciplines in the development of new products, systems and services (Sage, 1992). While there is clear evidence of the expansion of SE as a field of engineering, there is surprisingly little research on core concepts and common misconceptions particular to the field. A recent review of literature found no systematic studies of engineering students' conceptual understanding of fundamental engineering concepts - including those pertaining to SE - despite much research on important concepts in the sciences (Streveler et al., 2004). This paper is based on authors' research to identify and define the foundational concepts of system design. This paper proposes five key concepts of systems engineering, namely, context, interdisciplinarity, value, trade-offs, and abstraction (Jain and Chandrasekaran, 2008). The understanding of these concepts was tested on students to identify their misconceptions based on "intuitively formed understandings and misinformation learned elsewhere".

Online publication date: Mon, 06-Nov-2017

The full text of this article is only available to individual subscribers or to users at subscribing institutions.

 
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.

Pay per view:
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.

Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering (IJISE):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:

Username:        Password:          Forgotten your password?

Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.

If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com