The intuitive approach to engineering design of a multi-cultural group of engineering students

Abstract

We all acknowledge the importance of design in the world of an engineer, and much effort goes into teaching the best practices to our students. We however seldom examine what their intuitive approach to engineering design is. By simply teaching “generic”engineering design methodologies to our students, we also create “generic”engineers, leaving ourselves without the possibility of harnessing their cultural diversity within their projects. In this paper, we aim at disclosing the intuitive approach to engineering design of a culturally diverse group of engineering students at the North-West University in South Africa. We perform two case studies and discuss the lessons learnt