Torquetum

 

This is quite a lengthy paper which I shall summarise very briefly. The authors disagree (as many do) with the notion that students can transfer problem solving techniques from typical classroom problems (word problems, usually) to workplace problems, which are ill-structured. They conducted interviews with approximately 90 professional engineers about problems they had encountered and how they had solved them. The authors develop 12 themes which emerged from the interviews, such as “most constraints are non-engineering” and “Engineers primarily reply on experiential knowledge”. The authors close with suggestions for education, such as using PBL (problem based learning). This requires huge commitment from staff and wide ranging reform, however, and can be hard to achieve. Other than that they give suggestions on how to make classroom activities more like workplace situations.