The Effects of COVID-19 on the Development of Expertise, Decision-Making, and Engineering Intuition

Madeline Roth; Joselyn Elisabeth Busato; Elif Miskioglu

Download Paper | Permalink

Conference: 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Portland, Oregon
Publication Date: June 23, 2024
Start Date: June 23, 2024
End Date: June 26, 2024
Conference Session: Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM) Technical Session 23
Tagged Division: Educational Research and Methods Division (ERM)
Page Count: 17
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--48093
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/48093
Download Count: 80

Paper Authors

biography

Madeline Roth Bucknell University

visit author page

Madeline (Maddi) Roth is an undergraduate student with majors in Neuroscience and Psychology and a minor in Education.

visit author page

biography

Joselyn Elisabeth Busato Bucknell University

visit author page

Joselyn Busato is an undergraduate student at Bucknell University, majoring in creative writing and biology.

visit author page

biography

Elif Miskioglu Bucknell University

visit author page

Dr. Elif Miskioglu is an early-career engineering education scholar and educator. She holds a B.S. ˘
in Chemical Engineering (with Genetics minor) from Iowa State University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in
Chemical Engineering from Ohio State University. Her early Ph.D. work focused on the development of
bacterial biosensors capable of screening pesticides for specifically targeting the malaria vector mosquito,
Anopheles gambiae. As a result, her diverse background also includes experience in infectious disease
and epidemiology, providing crucial exposure to the broader context of engineering problems and their
subsequent solutions. These diverse experiences and a growing passion for improving engineering education prompted Dr. Miskioglu to change her career path and become a scholar of engineering education. ˘
As an educator, she is committed to challenging her students to uncover new perspectives and dig deeper
into the context of the societal problems engineering is intended to solve. As a scholar, she seeks to not
only contribute original theoretical research to the field, but work to bridge the theory-to-practice gap in
engineering education by serving as an ambassador for empirically driven educational
practices.

visit author page

Download Paper | Permalink

Abstract

This full paper explores the self-perceived influences of COVID-19 on the development of expertise, decision-making processes, and engineering intuition among early-career engineering practitioners. Intuition is a skill used by experts in the decision-making process when problem solving, and believed to develop alongside expertise largely through experience. Previous work supports that at least six years of experience is necessary for expertise development. We subsequently define early-career as up to six years of post-baccalaureate experience and expect that this population will not yet have expertise and therefore not use intuition. However, research has shown that early-career practitioners who graduated from a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI) prior to the onset of COVID-19 both claim expertise and report using intuition in their decision-making. This unexpected result may be reflective of the PUI’s emphasis on high-impact experiences, such as undergraduate research, extracurriculars, and internships. For current early-career engineers, the COVID-19 pandemic affected their undergraduate education, first years on the job, or a combination of the two by limiting access to certain types of experiences. The goal of this research is to better understand how COVID-19 influenced the development of expertise, decision-making processes, and intuition of early-career engineers who are alumni of the same PUI as prior work. We interviewed 11 current early-career engineering practitioners who graduated between 2018 and 2023. Interviews included several questions regarding expertise, decision-making, and intuition. In this paper we consider the questions: ‘Do you feel you have an expertise?,’ ‘Does your decision-making process differ from when you first started?,’ ‘Do you have engineering intuition?,’ and ‘How did COVID-19 affect the development of your expertise/decision-making/intuition?’ Responses to these questions were qualitatively coded to capture common themes. Results from coding reveal that the loss of experience due to COVID-19 parallels a lack of ownership of expertise by three participants and claims of having a faulty, or underdeveloped, intuition. Further analysis of responses indicates that hands-on and collaborative experiences are most helpful for developing expertise and intuition, highlighting their usefulness when integrated into engineering education curriculum.

Citation
Format

Roth, M., & Busato, J. E., & Miskioglu, E. (2024, June), The Effects of COVID-19 on the Development of Expertise, Decision-Making, and Engineering Intuition Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--48093

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This full paper explores the self-perceived influences of COVID-19 on the development of expertise, decision-making processes, and engineering intuition among early-career engineering practitioners. Intuition is a skill used by experts in the decision-making process when problem solving, and believed to develop alongside expertise largely through experience. Previous work supports that at least six years of experience is necessary for expertise development. We subsequently define early-career as up to six years of post-baccalaureate experience and expect that this population will not yet have expertise and therefore not use intuition.  However, research has shown that early-career practitioners who graduated from a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI) prior to the onset of COVID-19 both claim expertise and report using intuition in their decision-making. This unexpected result may be reflective of the PUI’s emphasis on high-impact experiences, such as undergraduate research, extracurriculars, and internships. For current early-career engineers, the COVID-19 pandemic affected their undergraduate education, first years on the job, or a combination of the two by limiting access to certain types of experiences. The goal of this research is to better understand how COVID-19 influenced the development of expertise, decision-making processes, and intuition of early-career engineers who are alumni of the same PUI as prior work. We interviewed 11 current early-career engineering practitioners who graduated between 2018 and 2023. Interviews included several questions regarding expertise, decision-making, and intuition. In this paper we consider the questions: ‘Do you feel you have an expertise?,’ ‘Does your decision-making process differ from when you first started?,’ ‘Do you have engineering intuition?,’ and ‘How did COVID-19 affect the development of your expertise/decision-making/intuition?’ Responses to these questions were qualitatively coded to capture common themes. Results from coding reveal that the loss of experience due to COVID-19 parallels a lack of ownership of expertise by three participants and  claims of having a faulty, or underdeveloped, intuition. Further analysis of responses indicates that hands-on and collaborative experiences are most helpful for developing expertise and intuition, highlighting their usefulness when integrated into engineering education curriculum.
AU  - Madeline Roth
AU  - Joselyn Elisabeth Busato
AU  - Elif Miskioglu
CY  - Portland, Oregon
DA  - 2024/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - The Effects of COVID-19 on the Development of Expertise, Decision-Making, and Engineering Intuition
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/48093
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--48093
ER  -