Freshman engineers' performance when solving design problems

Among the major changes that undergraduate engineering curricula are underg oing is the incorporation of design into freshman curricula. While the obje ctive is to teach design so that students learn both engineering processes and content knowledge, the open question remains: To what extent can freshm an engineering students learn to do design? To date, few studies have actua lly assessed acquisition of design skills. This paper presents the results of one such study in which freshman engineering students mere asked to solv e three short design problems, Half of the subjects solved the problems at the beginning of the first semester, freshman year and the other half solve d the problems at the beginning of the second semester, Results indicate th at after only one semester of engineering, students show more sophisticatio n in their design processes. However, while the quality of their problem so lving approach improved, comparable improvements were not found in the qual ity of their designs.