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Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
ScienceDirect www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
Procedia CIRP 00 (2017)
Procedia 000–000
CIRP 70 (2018) 313–318
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

28th
28th CIRP
CIRP Design
Design Conference,
Conference, May
May 2018,
2018, Nantes,
Nantes, France
France

Transdisciplinary
Transdisciplinary Design
Design
28th CIRP Education
Conference, for
Education
Design May Engineering
for Engineering Undergraduates:
Undergraduates:
2018, Nantes, France
Mapping
Mapping of
of Bloom’s
Bloom’stoTaxonomy
Taxonomy Cognitive
Cognitive Domain
Domain Across Design
Design Stages
Across architecture
Stages
A new methodology analyze the functional and physical of
existing products forSharunova,
Alyona
Alyona an assembly
Sharunova, oriented
Mehwish
Mehwish Butt, product
Ahmed
Butt, Ahmed Jawadfamily
Jawad Qureshi*identification
Qureshi*
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton T6G 1H9, Canada
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton T6G 1H9, Canada
Paul Stief *, Jean-Yves Dantan, Alain Etienne, Ali Siadat
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-780-492-3609. E-mail address: ajquresh@ualberta.ca.
* Corresponding
Écoleauthor. Tel.:Supérieure
Nationale d’Arts etE-mail
+1-780-492-3609. address:
Métiers, Arts et ajquresh@ualberta.ca.
Métiers ParisTech, LCFC EA 4495, 4 Rue Augustin Fresnel, Metz 57078, France

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3 87 37 54 30; E-mail address: paul.stief@ensam.eu

Abstract
Abstract
This
This paper
paper is the first
is the first in
in aa series
series from
from the
the study
study entitled
entitled Transdisciplinary
Transdisciplinary Design
Design Education
Education forfor Engineering
Engineering Undergraduates,
Undergraduates, whose
whose purpose
purpose isis
Abstract
to review the current engineering design education at the University of Alberta and develop a first-year transdisciplinary design course, accounting
to review the current engineering design education at the University of Alberta and develop a first-year transdisciplinary design course, accounting
for students’
students’ cognitive
cognitive development.
development. This This paper presents
presents thethe results
results of
of aa cognitive
cognitive game,
game, designed to
to assess the design thinking
thinking of of engineering
Infor
today’s business
professors. The environment,
results show the the trend paper
differences towards
between more product
cognitive variety
levels of andCognitive
the customization designed
Domain is unbroken.
of Bloom’s
assess
Duethe
to design
this development,
Taxonomy and their
engineering
the needand
distribution of
professors.
agile and The results show
reconfigurable the differences
production systems between
emerged cognitive
to cope levels
with various Cognitiveand
of the products Domain
productof Bloom’s
families. Taxonomy
To design and
and their distribution
optimize and
production
application
application at
at different
different design
designthe stages.
stages.
systems as well as to choose optimal product matches, product analysis methods are needed. Indeed, most of the known methods aim to
©
© 2017
2018 The
The Authors.
Authors. Published
Published
2017a product or one product family by Elsevier
by Elsevier B.V.
Ltd.
B.V. This islevel.
an open accessproduct
article under the however,
CC BY-NC-ND license
analyze on the physical Different families, may differ largely in terms of the number and
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee
committee of the 28th
of the 28th CIRP Design
CIRP Design Conference
Conference 2018.
2018.family combinations for the production
nature of components. This fact impedes an efficient comparison and choice of appropriate product
Peer-review
system. A newunder responsibility
methodology of the scientific
is proposed to analyzecommittee of the 28th
existing products in CIRP
view of Design
their Conference
functional and 2018.
physical architecture. The aim is to cluster
Keywords: Engineering Design Education, Transdisciplinary Design, Engineering Design Process, Bloom's Taxonomy.
Keywords:
these Engineering
products Design oriented
in new assembly Education, Transdisciplinary
product families for theDesign, Engineering
optimization Designassembly
of existing Process, lines
Bloom's and Taxonomy.
the creation of future reconfigurable
assembly systems. Based on Datum Flow Chain, the physical structure of the products is analyzed. Functional subassemblies are identified, and
a functional analysis is performed. Moreover, a hybrid functional and physical architecture graph (HyFPAG) is the output which depicts the
similarity between product families by providing design support to both,methodology, production system and planners andPsychology.
product designers.
These An illustrative
1. Introduction
1. Introduction
example of a nail-clipper is used to explain the proposed methodology. Anincorporated methodology, and Cognitive
industrial caseinstudy Cognitive
on two productPsychology.
families ofThese
elements
elements
steering columnsare
are
of
incorporated in an
an Educational
Educational Framework
Framework for
for Undergraduate
Undergraduate
thyssenkrupp Presta France is then carried out to give a first industrial evaluation of the proposed approach.
The shift
shift of
of contemporary
contemporary product product design fromfrom being
being mono-
mono- Engineering
Engineering Design Design Curriculum
Curriculum Development,
Development, which which we we
© 2017The The Authors. Published by Elsevierdesign B.V.
disciplinary to transdisciplinary as well as a need for well- recently
recently proposed
proposed [3].
[3]. This
This framework
framework serves
serves as
as a
a guide
guide for our
for our
disciplinary to transdisciplinary as well as a need for well-
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018.
trained engineering
engineering design design specialists
specialists withwith interdisciplinary
interdisciplinary study and
study and addresses
addresses the the following
following concerns:
concerns: 1. 1. What
What approach
approach
trained
competencies affects the job market, leading to stronger
stronger can be taken to better prepare our graduates
can be taken to better prepare our graduates for successful for successful
competencies
Keywords: Assembly;affects
Designthe jobFamily
method; market, leading to
identification
entrance andand performance
performance in in the
the contemporary
contemporary workplace?
workplace? 2. 2.
competition among potential employees. Transdisciplinarity is
competition among potential employees. Transdisciplinarity is entrance
What methodology can be used to develop an educational
defined
defined by Ertas et
by Ertas et al.
al. asas “the
“the integrated
integrated use use ofof the
the tools,
tools, What methodology can be used to develop an educational
techniques, curriculum for for teaching
teaching transdisciplinary
transdisciplinary engineering
engineering designdesign
techniques, and and methods
methods from from various
various disciplines”
disciplines” [1] [1] asas it
it is
is curriculum
1.concerned
Introduction with what is “simultaneously between disciplines, andthe
of
and developing
product range
developing interdisciplinary competencies
and characteristics
interdisciplinary in students?
students?
manufactured
competencies in and/or
concerned with what is “simultaneously between disciplines,
across different
across different disciplines,
disciplines, and and beyond
beyond all all disciplines”
disciplines” [2]. [2]. assembled in this system. In this context, the main challenge in
This
Duenew
This new to industrial
the fast change
industrial development
change in
in turn
turn inrequires educational
the domain
requires educational of 1.1. Engineering
Engineering
modelling
1.1. design is
and analysis
design in industry
in industry
now not and and education
onlyeducation
to cope with single
institutions
institutions to
communication to take
andsteps
take an in
steps preparing
inongoing
preparing their
trend
their ofstudents for
for the
digitization
students the new
and
new products, a limited product range or existing product families,
industrial,
industrial, professional
digitalization, manufacturing
professional and
and life-long challenges
enterprises
life-long are facing
challenges by
by developing
important
developing Due toto
but also tobe the
the
able totransdisciplinary
analyze and to compare nature products
of contemporary
contemporary
to define
Due transdisciplinary nature of
new educational
challenges pedagogy,
in today’s marketmethodologies
environments: and approaches.
a continuing engineering
new practice, a collaboration of specialists from
new educational pedagogy, methodologies and approaches. engineering practice, a collaboration of specialistsexisting
product families. It can be observed that classical from
This
This paper
tendency towards is the
the first
first in
is reduction of aaproduct
series
series from the
the study
development entitled
times and different
product engineering disciplines is required to develop efficient
paper in from study entitled differentfamilies
engineeringare regrouped
disciplines inisfunction
requiredoftoclients
develop or features.
efficient
Transdisciplinary
Transdisciplinary
shortened Design Education
Design In Education
product lifecycles. addition, there for Engineering
foris anEngineering
increasing solutions assembly
to interdisciplinary
interdisciplinary problems of integrated
integrated product
However,
solutions to oriented productproblems families
of are hardlyproduct
to find.
Undergraduates.
Undergraduates. This
This study
study aims to review the current design [2,4]. Consider the example of an automobile, which is
demand of customization, beingaims at thetosamereviewtime the
in a current
global On the
design product
[2,4]. Considerfamilythe level,
example products differ mainlywhich
of an automobile, in two
is
engineering
engineering with design
design education
education all at the
at the University of Alberta to a transdisciplinary product designed by engineers from
competition competitors overUniversity
the world.ofThis Albertatrend,to main characteristics: (i)
a transdisciplinary the number
product of components
designed by engineers and (ii) the
from
establish
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common understanding
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of the
the engineering
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design mechanical, electrical, chemical and and otherelectronical).
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type of components electrical, chemical
(e.g. mechanical, other
electrical, engineering
processes taught
taughtinin
processesresults each
each department
in diminisheddepartment and develop
and due
develop aa first-year
first-year disciplines andand industrial
industrial designers.
designers. To To create the
the most
most optimal
optimal
markets, lotThe
sizes to augmenting disciplines
Classical methodologies considering create
mainly single products
transdisciplinary
transdisciplinary design
design course.
course. The study
study incorporates
incorporates the
the design these experts need to have a “shared understanding” of
product varieties (high-volume to low-volume production) [1]. design
or these already
solitary, experts need to have
existing a “shared
product understanding”
families analyze the of
results
results of
of industrial
industrial and
and educational
educational research,
research, teaching
teaching the design process and communicate effectively as the lack of
To cope with this augmenting variety as well as to be able to the design
product process
structure onand communicate
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identify possible optimization potentials in the existing causes difficulties regarding an efficient definition and
2212-8271 ©system,
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2212-8271 © 2017 The it is important
Authors. Published by Elsevier a precise
B.V. comparison of different product families. Addressing this
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018.
2212-8271 © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/)
2212-8271 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review
Peer-review under
under responsibility
responsibility of scientific
of the the scientific committee
committee of the of theCIRP
28th 28thDesign
CIRP Conference
Design Conference
2018. 2018.
10.1016/j.procir.2018.02.042
314 Alyona Sharunova et al. / Procedia CIRP 70 (2018) 313–318
2 Alyona Sharunova et al. / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
understanding may cause iterations in the design process or
result in project failure [5].
Several empirical studies on the transdisciplinary
engineering design process in industry revealed core
similarities in the design processes between engineering
disciplines. These studies showed that engineers in each
domain perform similar steps when designing the product but
address them from different perspectives. For example,
Gericke and Blessing [6,7] compared several design process
models from 9 engineering disciplines and discovered this set
of common design stages: establishing a need, analysis of a
task, conceptual design, embodiment design, detailed design,
implementation, use and closeout. In an empirical study with
industrial designers, Qureshi et al. [2] discovered shared
elements of current industrial design practice and showed that
engineering designers distinguish between different design
stages as well as that the design process has an iterative nature.
Another study on the stages of product lifecycle [4] supported
these findings by showing that product lifecycle stages are
similar across engineering domains. However, despite the
presence of these commonalities in engineering design
processes across disciplines, the engineering design curriculum
remains focused on teaching discipline specific design
practices. As a result, engineering graduates have a limited
common basis to relate to the transdisciplinary engineering
design process, causing a needless difficulty for students
entering industry.
Regarding interdisciplinary competencies, a series of
empirical studies in industry comprising 17 organizations from
14 different countries on 4 continents, showed that experienced
design professionals recognize and work with fundamental
cognitive, creative and logical processes in engineering design
[2,7]. However, recent research pointed out concerns that
contemporary employers raise when looking for new
employees: recent graduates lack professional skills such as
communication, teamwork, creativity, and problem solving [8-
10]. These studies suggest that development of both technical
and general skills should be given equal attention, which in turn
depends on students’ cognitive development. So far, the
majority of studies on improving engineering education have
been discipline specific, excluding the cross-analysis of all
engineering domains and covering only one or two cognitive
attributes but not the whole cognitive domain. Furthermore,
limited research has been carried out on developing
engineering curriculums which takes into account the
transdisciplinary nature of the engineering design process and
focuses on the development of interdisciplinary competencies.
This motivated us to carry out a study which would establish a
common understanding of the engineering design process
between different engineering disciplines and consider the
cognitive development of students.
1.2. Bloom’s Taxonomy in engineering education
Bloom’s Taxonomy, developed by Benjamin Bloom and
later revised by his students and followers, is a set of
taxonomies in three domains of learning, namely the cognitive,
affective and psychomotor [11,12]. In this study we focus on
the Cognitive Domain which involves conscious intellectual
activity [13]. It consists of 6 cognitive levels of complexity:
Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis
and Evaluation. The first three levels are generally referred to
as lower levels of thinking and the last three are referred to as
higher levels of thinking [14]. The learning processes
corresponding to each level can be briefly summarized as: 1.
Knowledge - an ability to recall and remember information; 2.
Comprehension – an ability to understand and explain
concepts; 3. Application – an ability to use information in a new
setting; 4. Analysis – an ability to analyze and distinguish parts;
5. Synthesis – an ability put things together and develop a new
product; and 6. Evaluation – an ability to judge and justify a
decision or point of view.
Given its unique educational features and relation to the
cognitive abilities, Bloom’s Taxonomy can be applied in any
discipline. Multiple studies attempted to integrate and apply
Bloom’s Taxonomy to the curriculum design to enhance
engineering courses or evaluate students’ learning [15,16]. In
many cases Bloom’s Taxonomy is applied to the development
of course learning outcomes. The CDIO Initiative, for example,
which is implemented by more than 100 engineering schools
worldwide aiming to enhance engineering education and
maintain it in line with industrial demands, implements and
recommends Bloom’s Taxonomy for the curriculum and
learning outcome development [17]. The reason why we use
Bloom’s Taxonomy in our study is because it is a powerful tool
for teaching as it provides a common language to compare and
discuss two different subject areas and helps the understanding
how these subjects overlap or can deliver conceptual and
practical knowledge concurrently [3]. It also helps to assess the
cognitive aspects of the design activities as the application of
Bloom’s Taxonomy in education is strongly linked to the
development of both high and low levels of thinking, problem
solving, creative and critical thinking skills, which are all a part
of the cognitive design activity. This makes this taxonomy a
perfect tool for the development of a transdisciplinary design
curriculum with emphasis on cognitive development.
Since engineering design education is mostly based on
teaching students the basics of engineering and then combining
this knowledge in design projects at later stages, a successful
synthesis of knowledge from first-year to last year courses is
essential and can be achieved through application of Bloom’s
Taxonomy as a common language or unifying foundation. In
our case we aim to develop a first-year engineering design
course that incorporates Bloom’s taxonomy and knowledge
from other engineering disciplines in order to be applicable to
all departments’ curriculums and facilitate students’ success in
engineering design throughout the later years of their
undergraduate studies. In our study we also use Bloom’s
Taxonomy as a tool to assess how engineering professors think
about the design process which reflects their teaching
approaches.
1.3. Research hypotheses
As mentioned above, we aim to establish a common
understanding of the universal processes in engineering design
by looking at similarities between departments. In order to do
so, we need to understand how engineering professors think
and teach the design process and for that reason we developed
a tool based on Bloom’s Taxonomy – the cognitive game. This
game has three purposes: 1. To assess and collect the names of
design stages which are used in different engineering
 Alyona Sharunova et al. / Procedia CIRP 70 (2018) 313–318
Alyona Sharunova et al. / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
disciplines; 2. To identify the amount and variety of design
activities performed at each stage; and 3. To build a base of
nouns for an engineering design ontology to establish the
common engineering design process. This game links the
Bloom’s Taxonomy to the engineering design process. In this
paper we explore the second purpose of this game, in particular,
the distribution and application of the Cognitive Domain of
Bloom’s Taxonomy across different engineering design stages.
We hypothesize that 1. the cognitive load, in particular the
amount of design activities necessary to carry the product
design, differs from stage to stage and gradually shifts from
lower to higher levels of thinking along the design process, 2.
different cognitive levels are significant at different stages, and
3. that the majority of design activities happen at the beginning
of the design process during the first 3 stages.
2. Methods
2.1. Participants
71 professors from the Faculty of Engineering at the
University of Alberta who have taught design courses since
2014 were contacted via emails. Of those contacted, 34 of them
agreed to participate, out of which 3 professors were females
and the rest were males. The sample included 6 representatives
of academic leadership from different departments, i.e. Deans
and Associate Chairs, who are involved in planning and
organizing the undergraduate curriculum, 4 out of which did
not teach a design course before but were invited to provide
their opinion on teaching design within departments. Table 1
shows the number of participants from each department. Before
the data collection, 5 pilot trials were conducted with the
randomly selected participants and project collaborators,
whose data was excluded from the analysis. Participants were
invited for a 1-hour interview, where they filled out a short
questionnaire about the course they teach and were asked to
describe the design method and process they use for teaching
students. After that all participants were asked to play our
cognitive game and provide a feedback about how they did in
the game.
Table 1. Number of participants selected from each department. The presence
of academic leadership representatives is shown with *.
Department Number of people
Mechanical Engineering* 13
Chemical and Materials Engineering* 8 The design stages used are Planning (PL), Concept
Electrical and Computer Engineering* 7 Development (CD), System Level Design (SLD), Detailed
Civil and Environmental Engineering 6 Design (DD), Implementation and Testing (IT), and Production
Total 34
2.2. Design courses
Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB), a
regulatory body responsible for accreditation of all engineering
programs in Canada, distinguishes engineering design courses
from engineering science courses. According to CEAB,
engineering design “integrates mathematics, natural sciences,
engineering sciences and complementary studies in order to
develop elements, systems, and processes to meet specific
needs” [18]. CEAB distinguishes between different
engineering design courses based on the course content. We
divided design courses from non-relevant to level 3, which
315
3
signifies that the course of design relevance 3 has an extensive
design component in it and non-relevant means no design
component. The total of 46 design courses of design relevance
3 as per CEAB regulations from year 2016 were identified at
the Faculty of Engineering, out of which 23 design courses
were covered in this study. Only professors who teach courses
of design relevance 3 and representatives of academic
leadership were invited for an interview. Some courses were
taught by two or more different professors, which is reflected
in the higher number of participants than the number of courses
covered in the study. Table 2 shows the disciplines and number
of design courses covered out of total number of design courses
in each department, noting the number of repeated courses.
There were four 2nd year courses, five 3rd year courses, and
twenty-one 4th year courses, out of which 7 were the capstone
design projects. A second year CAD drafting course, which had
a design relevance 1, was included as an exception because it
is a co-requisite of the 2nd year current introductory mechanical
design course. The majority of departments had 3rd and 4th year
courses, except for the Department of Mechanical Engineering
which has 2nd, 3rd and 4th year design courses.
Table 2. Number of design courses covered in the study from each discipline
out of total design courses in each department. The number in brackets shows
extra time when some courses are taught by more than one professor.
Course Number of design Total number of
disciplines courses covered design courses
Electrical 4 (+1) 15
Computer 1 2
Chemical 2 (+1) 2
Materials 5 7
Civil 3 8
Mining 2 3
Petroleum 1 3
Mechanical 5 (+5) 6
Total 23 46
2.3 Cognitive game
The cognitive game was developed based on action verbs
from the Cognitive Domain of the original Bloom’s Taxonomy.
The game had 3 steps:
1. All participants were given a game board with 6 general
design stages placed along an arrow representing the design
process and 6 corresponding empty columns. The design stages
were suggested based on the Ulrich and Eppinger’s stages [19].
(PR). All participants were asked to rename the proposed
stages as per their discipline or they could choose to use the
stages we provided.
2. All participants were given 42 randomly mixed stickers
with 7 unique verbs from each of the cognitive levels as shown
in Table 3 [20]. They were asked to fill up all stickers with a
noun while thinking about the design process from their
engineering discipline, forming the design activities. For
example, to define “problem”, to list “requirements” or
“specifications”.
3. Participants had to place all 42 stickers into 6 columns
with the corresponding design stages based on what they think
is the best place for those activities to happen in the design
process. While placing the stickers into the columns, all
316 Alyona Sharunova et al. / Procedia CIRP 70 (2018) 313–318
4 Alyona Sharunova et al. / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000

participants were asked to think about the design process in Knowledge

their discipline. Participants were told to place each sticker in 90
one column only and not into two or more. There was no time
60
limit for this activity but the time spent on the game ranged
from 15 to 40 mins. 30

0
Table 3. The Action verbs of the Cognitive Domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
PL CD SLD DD IT PR
Cognitive Domain Action Verbs
Knowledge (Kn) Define, Describe, Identify, List, Name, Order,
Recognize Fig. 2. Distribution of Knowledge action verbs each design stage

Comprehension (Cm) Classify, Discuss, Distinguish, Estimate,

Comprehension
Extend, Indicate, Review
90
Application (Ap) Apply, Choose, Compute, Illustrate, Modify,
Practice, Solve 60
Analysis (An) Analyse, Calculate, Compare, Criticize, Infer, 30
Model, Test
0
Synthesis (Sn) Combine, Create, Design, Develop, Generate,
PL CD SLD DD IT PR
Prepare, Synthesize
Evaluation (Ev) Conclude, Defend, Evaluate, Explain, Justify, Fig. 3. Distribution of Comprehension action verbs at each design stage
Interpret, Predict

Application
3. Results
90

The number of stickers with action verbs from the Cognitive 60

Domain were used to determine the number of design tasks at 30
each design stage. There were total of 1427 stickers placed out
of 1428 as one sticker from Application level was not placed 0
PL CD SLD DD IT PR
by one participant by mistake. The data was analyzed using
Microsoft Office Excel 2016 and IBM SPSS Statistic 24. Table
Fig. 4. Distribution of Application action verbs at each design stage
4 shows the distribution of verbs at each design stage and each
cognitive level. Table 5 shows the distribution of each
Analysis
cognitive level in percentages. Figure 1 shows the total
distribution of the Cognitive Domain along the design process. 90
Figures 2 to 7 show number of verbs at each stage for each 60
cognitive level separately. Table 6 maps cognitive levels across
30
the design stages based on the cognitive load of each level,
ascending from low cognitive load to high cognitive load. 0
PL CD SLD DD IT PR
Table 4. Distribution of the Cognitive Domain at each design stage.
Design stages / Fig. 5. Distribution of Analysis action verbs at each design stage
PL CD SLD DD IT PR
Cognitive Domain
Knowledge 105 52 24 19 22 16 Synthesis
Comprehension 39 67 35 41 41 15 90
Application 23 53 49 68 35 9
60
Analysis 13 49 55 44 73 4
30
Synthesis 35 61 41 51 22 28
0
Evaluation 17 55 41 35 61 29 PL CD SLD DD IT PR
Total 232 337 245 258 254 101
Fig. 6. Distribution of Synthesis action verbs at each design stage

90 Evaluation
60 90

30 60
0 30
PL CD SLD DD IT PR
Knowledge Comprehension Application 0
Analysis Synthesis Evaluation PL CD SLD DD IT PR

Fig. 1. Distribution of the Cognitive Domain along the design process Fig. 7. Distribution of Evaluation action verbs at each design stage
 AlyonaAlyona Sharunova
Sharunova et al. / Procedia
et al. / Procedia CIRP 00CIRP 70 000–000
(2018) (2018) 313–318 317
5

Table 5. Percentage of each cognitive level’s load at each design stage. necessary data about the problem should be gathered or
Design stages / recalled first before any ideas or concepts can be generated. For
PL CD SLD DD IT PR
Cognitive Domain
example, problem definition, specifications, constraints,
Knowledge 44.1 21.8 10.1 8.0 9.2 6.7
regulations, budget, and other criteria should be given or
Comprehension 16.4 28.2 14.7 17.2 17.2 6.3 defined at this stage.
Application 9.7 22.3 20.6 28.6 14.7 3.8 2. Comprehension and Synthesis levels dominate at the
Analysis 5.5 20.6 23.1 18.5 30.7 1.7
Concept Development stage, which implies that the problem
understanding and brainstorming are required for an idea and
Synthesis 14.7 25.6 17.2 21.4 9.2 11.8
concept generation process, which must be synthesized
Evaluation 7.1 23.1 17.2 14.7 25.6 12.2 together before the technical design is performed. For example,
all possible ideas should be discussed with their pros and cons.
Table 6. Mapping of the Cognitive Domain across the design stages. 3. Application and Analysis levels dominate at System
PL CD SLD DD IT PR Level Design stage, suggesting that an ability to apply the
Less cognitive load knowledge about the problem to a new situation is required to
An An Kn Kn Kn An start on the whole system design and its different parts. For
Ev Kn Cm Ev Sn Ap instance, at this stage different constraints, specifications and
Ap Ap Sn Cm Ap Cm regulations should be put together into the technical drawings.
Sn Ev Ev An Cm Kn
4. Application and Synthesis levels dominate at the Detailed
Design stage, pointing to the fact that more attention should be
Cm Sn Ap Sn Ev Sn
given to the development of a product details, parts and
Kn Cm An Ap An Ev
components and how they are integrated into the full system.
More cognitive load 5. Analysis and Evaluation levels dominate at the
Implementation and Testing stage, which in turn suggests that
4. Discussion the design of the product should be analyzed, tested and
evaluated before it is ready to go for the mass production.
The Cognitive Domain of Bloom’s Taxonomy is 6. Lastly, Synthesis and Evaluation levels dominate at the
hierarchical and a progression from Knowledge to Evaluation Production stage, which can be explained by the fact that all
levels is necessary to completely master a skill or a piece of details should be synthesized in the final product, which should
knowledge. We hypothesized that the cognitive load, in be fully evaluated in terms of its creativity, quality, novelty,
particular the amount of design activities necessary to carry the safety, etc.
product design, differs from stage to stage and gradually shifts In addition, Concept Development stage has more design
from lower to higher levels of thinking, along the design activities than other stages and Production stage has the least.
process. If there was no difference between cognitive loads at These results show that all cognitive levels play different roles
each stage, we would expect to see similar patterns in Figures at different design stages, depending on the type and number of
1 to 7. However, Figure 1 shows that all cognitive levels are in activates performed at each stage. These patterns are consistent
use at each design stage and peak at different stages. In with our assumptions that different cognitive levels are more
particular, Figure 2 shows that Knowledge level prevails at the important at different stages than others.
Planning stage and then gradually decreases as other cognitive Lastly, we hypothesized that the majority of design
levels come into play. As can be seen from Figures 3 to 7, activities happen at the beginning of the design process, in
Comprehension level peaks at Concept Development stage, particular during the first 3 stages. Table 4 shows the
Application level peaks at the Detailed Design stage, Analysis distribution of the design activities at each design stage and
level peaks at the Implementation and Testing stage, Synthesis cognitive level. As can be seen, the majority of design activities
level peaks at Concept Development stage, and Evaluation fall onto the first half of the design process, which supports our
level peaks at Implementation and Testing stage but is also high hypothesis and suggests that the first steps in the design process
at Concept Development stage. There is also a clear difference are more important as they define the flow of the design process
in distribution of each cognitive level, which is reflected in and mistakes at the beginning of the process may cause process
uneven loads allocation as shown in Table 5. Also, Table 6 iterations or a project failure.
maps the cognitive levels based on their relevance at each Given the novelty of this study, its limitations should be
design stage from low to high, where the most demanded considered, in particular the use of the original Bloom’s
cognitive levels gradually shift from Knowledge to Evaluation. Taxonomy, the limited set of action verbs, and pre-defined
These results support our hypothesis that the cognitive load number of design stages. In future work it would be interesting
shifts from lower to higher levels of thinking along the design to replicate this study with students, use the revised Bloom’s
process. Taxonomy, increase the number of action verbs to manipulate
We also hypothesized that different cognitive levels are the cognitive levels, and see the difference in responses
significant at different stages. First, all cognitive levels are in between different engineering departments. It would also be
use at all design stages as show in Table 4. Second, if we interesting to replicate this game with industrial designers to
consider two most dominating levels at each stage from Table
investigate their design thinking. The departmental differences
6, we can see that the cognitive load and abilities necessary to
and discipline-specific breakdown of the results of our
carry out the design of a product are consistent with the most
Cognitive game shall be revealed and discussed in future
common design activates of each design stage:
1. Knowledge level clearly dominates at the Planning stage publications.
followed by Comprehension, which suggests that all the
318 Alyona Sharunova et al. / Procedia CIRP 70 (2018) 313–318
6 Alyona Sharunova et al. / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
5. Conclusion
Based on our findings we conclude that design activities and
underlining cognitive processes are connected to the design
stages. The majority of design activities fall onto the beginning
of the design process, where the more important activities
occur. In particular, the Concept Development stage should be
given special attention as more design activities occur at this
stage and the nature of these activities, i.e. idea generation, may
have significant impact on the rest of design steps. We have
also shown that the cognitive work load necessary to carry out
product design shifts from lower to higher levels of thinking of
Bloom’s Cognitive Domain and that each cognitive level is
important at different design stages based on the activities and
decisions that must be performed. It is important to note that all
cognitive levels were in use at each design stage, suggesting
that at each stage it is essential to pass though the cycle from
Knowledge to Evaluation to ensure the successful completion
of a stage. This in turn links Bloom’s Taxonomy to the design
process and proves its applicability to engineering design.
In this paper we explored the design thinking of engineering
professors, in particular the amount and variety of design
activities performed at different design stages, and showed the
connection between Bloom’s Taxonomy and teaching
engineering design. Given that the results of this study
incorporate the data from professors from different engineering
departments, who teach courses from multiple disciplines, this
makes Bloom’s Taxonomy a useful tool for the development of
the transdisciplinary design curriculum which would account
for the cognitive development of students. Since Bloom’s
Taxonomy was showed to be linked to learning engineering
design education and the cognitive design activity, these
findings are important to consider while developing an
engineering design curriculum. Bloom’s Taxonomy can be
used for teaching design processes and transdisciplinary design
courses as well as its proper application can have a positive
impact students’ learning, cognitive abilities, and development
of interdisciplinary competencies.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the
Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Alberta
and all project collaborators: Dr. Suzanne Kresta, Dr. Jason P.
Carey, Dr. Loren Wyard-Scott, Dr. Samer Adeeb, and Dr.
Lucienne M. Blessing.
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