Characterizing Engineering Design Activities Using Jonassen's Design Theory of Problem Solving

This paper describes the development and implementation of a survey instrument, based on Jonassen's design theory of problem solving, which characterizes educational design activities. The motivation behind this work is to determine the effectiveness of authentic problem solving activities - called Engineering Design Days - implemented in the University of Waterloo's 14 engineering programs. The instrument is a guided survey given to instructors which captures an activity's problem variation and representation. The survey was developed through a number of iterations, with refinements addressing observed shortcomings in the collected data. Its application is demonstrated with a case study of one design activity that was offered to first year software engineering students. The survey captures many of the elements of Jonassen's design theory of problem solving as they pertain to educational design activities. Future work will focus on applying the instrument to additional educational design activities, which may inform future evolutions to the survey.