Engineering functions have been described using various definitions which highlight different aspects of the term “function”.  This paper presents an analysis of function definitions provided by mechanical engineering students as part of a protocol study.  Topics are identified from student definitions, when are then applied to definitions collected from literature.  Student definitions are found to be more likely to skew towards one topic, whereas definitions in literature are found to be more likely to contain a combination of topics.  Lastly, student definitions are compared to the corresponding function models generated by students based on the size and a rubric based evaluation of models.  Larger function models are found to be correlated to definitions that include terms such as “input/output” and “process.”  Definitions that use terms such as “task” and “action” are found to have higher evaluation scores, but the differences are small in magnitude.  In general, the activity of creating a function model was found to correlate with how students define function.


Defining Function:  How Student Definitions Compare to Literature to Function Model Generation

Division / Sponsors: 
Design Engineering Division and Computers & Information In Engineering Division


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IDETC-CIE/IDETC-CIE2020/volume/83907

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