Ying Ying Seah

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor of Computer Science at University of Evansville

Despite an increasing focus on integrating engineering design in K-12 settings, relatively few studies have investigated how to support students to engage in systematic processes to optimize the designs of their solutions. Emerging learning technologies such as computational models and simulations enable rapid feedback to learners about their desig...

Empathy plays a crucial role in design because it allows designers to have the ability to better understand their user needs, and consequently, create effective user-centered design solutions. Based on literature, various pedagogical techniques have been developed and implemented to foster empathy within design curriculum. Some of these techniques...

In this exploratory study, we investigated students’ design thinking strategies during a challenge involving the design of an energy-efficient house. We used the Informed Design Teaching and Learning Matrix as a framework for characterizing the students’ design thinking, focusing on four specific strategies—generating ideas, conducting experiments,...

Computer-aided design (CAD) programs are essential to engineering as they allow for better designs through low-cost iterations. While CAD programs are typically taught to undergraduate students as a job skill, such software can also help students learn engineering concepts. A current limitation of CAD programs (even those that are specifically desi...

Computer-aided design (CAD) programs are essential to engineering as they allow for better designs through low-cost iterations. While CAD programs are typically taught to undergraduate students as a job skill, such software can also help students learn engineering concepts. A current limitation of CAD programs (even those that are specifically desi...

This multiple case study focused on the implementation of a computer-aided design (CAD) simulation to help students engage in engineering design to learn science concepts. Our findings describe three case studies that adopted the same learning design and adapted it to three different populations, settings, and classroom contexts: at the middle-scho...

Various research efforts have been put into understanding design strategies performed by novice designers versus informed designers, misconceptions and challenges in design, as well as design teaching strategies, just to name a few. However, the work on operationalizing design strategies as a form of assessment still remains largely unexplored. In...

In science and engineering education, the use of heuristics has been introduced as a way of understanding the world, and as a way to approach problem-solving and design. However, important consequences for the use of heuristics are that they do not always guarantee a correct solution. Learning by Design has been identified as a pedagogical strategy...

Experimentation is one of the important strategies used in engineering design to understand the relationship between relevant variables so that they can be manipulated to generate optimized solution for a particular problem or design. The understanding of students’ experimentation strategies allows educators to help students improve their design ex...

Conducting experiments is an important practice for both engineering design and scientific inquiry. Engineers iteratively conduct experiments to evaluate ideas, make informed decisions, and optimize their designs. However, both engineering design and scientific experimentation are open‐ended tasks that are not easy to assess. Recent studies have de...

Agile methods such as Scrum that emphasize technical, communication, and teamwork skills have been practiced by IT professionals to effectively deliver software products of good quality. The same methods combined with pedagogies of engagement can potentially be used in the setting of higher education to promote effective group learning in software...

Engineering design is an iterative process that supports the solution of problems by applying scientific knowledge to make informed decisions. Assessing different levels of expertise in experimentation is a difficult task since these are not usually visible as part of a student's final design solution. The purpose of this research is to investigate...