A “knowledge profile” of an engineering occupation: temporal patterns in the use of engineering knowledge

Abstract

The following( APA) citation may be used to reference this manuscript:Gainsburg, J., Rodriguez-Lluesma, C., Bailey, D. (2010). A "knowledge profile" of an engineering occupation: temporal patterns in the use of engineering knowledge. Retrieved from http://scholarworks.csun.edu Citation: Gainsburg, J., Rodriguez-Lluesma, C., Bailey, D. (2010). A "knowledge profile" of an engineering occupation: temporal patterns in the use of engineering knowledge.Engineering Studies, 2:3, 10.1080/19378629.2010.519773 This is the authors' pre-print manuscript as submitted for refereeing and publication. The penultimate, refereed, publisher-formatted PDF may be available through the journal web site or, your college and university library. Manuscript Citation Published Version Information AbstractEach engineering occupation is distinguished by the body of specific knowledge it has built up over time. Some scholars argue that the instrumentality of this historically established knowledge in the solution of everyday design problems renders formal education more important than experience. Other scholars counter that engineering work primarily demands practice-generated knowledge that individuals construct in the course of everyday activities. We address this argument by documenting the frequency with which engineers apply different types of knowledge, with different derivations. Adopting a behavioral perspective, we isolated 1072 episodes of knowledge use in our field observations of structural engineers. From these episodes, we constructed a "knowledge profile" that indicated that two-thirds of the knowledge engineers employed was practice generated. The profile also revealed temporal patterns in the frequency with which the engineers used each knowledge type. Knowledge profiles like the one we constructed should help differentiate among engineering occupations, thereby serving as the foundation for conceptualizing occupations in a world of "knowledge work." In addition, knowledge profiles can help university engineering education programs better target and mirror the knowledge demands of the profession.

Engineering Studies

“…Many reactions have challenged the claim of domestication. Gainsburg et al (2010) found that workplace knowledge and commitments in an engineering occupation may derive more from on-the-job experience than from prior formal education. Studies based in the United Kingdom have wrestled with such issues as employer scorn for formal engineering education, relative disinterest by government agencies, tension over the continuing role of craft training, and workers managing dual commitments inside and outside of industrial organizations.…”

Student Team Solutions to an Open‐Ended Mathematical Modeling Problem: Gaining Insights for Educational Improvement

“…Dym and colleagues briefly describe and point to research on several languages that are used to represent engineering and design knowledge; among these representations are verbal or textual statements (Dym, Agogino, Eris, Frey, & Leifer, 2005). Other investigations of professional engineers' use of mathematics have examined how they employ mathematical representations in their work (Gainsburg, 2007;Gainsburg, Rodriguez-Lluesma, & Bailey, 2010). All these works demonstrate that engineering students and professionals must flexibly use multiple formal and informal representational systems to problem solve and design effectively.…”

The Energy Conversion Playground (ECP) Design Task: Assessing how Students Think About Technical and Non-Technical Considerations in Sustainable Community Development

“…The role of technical considerations in design is made visible in several studies on engineering design. For example, an ethnographic study by Gainsburg, RodriguezLluesma, and Bailey discusses how structural engineers regularly employ "considerable numbers of theoretical tools covering a broad spectrum of topics" (p. 206) 28 among several forms of knowledge. And while Buciarrelli's work is well-known for richly describing engineering design as a "social process", his ethnographic research also shows how practicing engineers consciously utilize knowledge from their respective technical "object worlds," or realms of instrumental thinking where abstraction, reductionism, and quantification are predominant.…”

“…When non-technical elements are viewed as constraints, the information sought about such elements tends to be quantifiable. 27,28 This category can also include non-technical constraints related to the process by which a system or artifact is designed, e.g., team schedules, travel logistics, etc. Inclusion of such considerations reflects the fuzzy boundary between the design itself and the "social process" of design.…”