Session: DEC-01-01-Implementation and Assessment

Paper Number: 91229

91229 - Evaluating the Effect of Project Frame on Communicative Patterns in Capstone Design Pitches 

Effective communication is an integral part of engineering design and leads to successful design outcomes. While there have been extensive calls to equip novice designers with effective communication skills, there is only a limited body of work that has attempted to characterize the communication patterns of novice designers, particularly when engaging with external audiences. This work seeks to characterize how the project type, or the nature of design problem, shapes the communicative patterns of novice designers when communicating design outcomes to external audiences. presentations of design solutions from 46 teams were collected at the end of a semester-long capstone design program. These presentations were then characterized as industry- and human-centered-projects. Analysis was conducted using topic modeling and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count analysis to identify differences in linguistic patterns of novice designers between the two project types. Contrary to prior findings, no significant differences were found, implying that the communication patterns of novice designers are not affected by the type of project (or design problem being solved). []

Presenting Author: Sandeep Krishnakumar The Pennsylvania State University

Presenting Author Biography: Sandeep Krishnakumar is a doctoral candidate in the Technology and Human Research in Engineering Design Lab in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University.

Authors:

Samantha Link The Pennsylvania State University
Sandeep Krishnakumar The Pennsylvania State University
Jessica Menold The Pennsylvania State University