Engineering Students' Perceptions of Problem Solving and Their Future

Background Preparing students to solve complex problems is an identified area of need in engineering education. Despite the documented influence of motivation on learning, little research exists that examines how motivation and problem solving in engineering interconnect. Purpose This study explores how engineering students perceive problem solving tasks, the future, and the connections between the two. Methods Interviews with engineering students (n59) about engineering problems, problem solving processes, their futures, and interactions between their futures and problem solving tasks were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Analysis of the resulting transcripts identified and clustered units of meaning into themes, first by participant and then across participants. Results Three themes emerged from the IPA: participants perceived engineering as being primarily a problem solving process; participants reported using different problem solving processes depending on how well the task aligned with their future goals; and participants' perceptions of their future drove the problem solving processes they report using. Conclusions This work supports and extends engineering problem solving literature by making explicit the connections students describe between their problem solving processes and their future-oriented motivations. Additionally, this work furthers our understanding of how future-oriented motivations are conceptualized by engineering students.