Amy Gruss
Kennesaw State University, GA·Education Research
Engineers need to see problems from more than one point of view, a skill called perspective-taking. It helps them understand the people they design for and solve complex problems.
- Fields
Education Research
Engineering
Psychology
- Topics
engineering education
perspective-taking
Visual Thinking Strategies
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Measure how Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), group discussion of ambiguous art at a campus museum, changes perspective-taking in first-year civil and environmental engineering students, using a validated scale.
- Assess how VTS influences students' approach to an engineering design problem from their coursework, using design-approach assessments and semi-structured interviews.
- Develop an interactive workshop and online materials to help engineering faculty integrate VTS into design courses.
More about the research
Engineering courses rarely teach this skill directly. This project asks whether looking at art together can build perspective-taking in first-year engineering students and change how they approach design problems.
Why it matters
If arts-based observation improves perspective-taking, engineering instructors would gain a simple, evidence-based way to help students approach problems from multiple viewpoints. Free workshop and online materials could help faculty add Visual Thinking Strategies to design courses, better preparing future engineers for complex challenges.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jennifer Detlor
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Education Research
Identify which factors lead engineering students to self-identify as rural, and how strongly they hold that identity, using a survey in which students define rurality in their own terms.
Azadeh Bolhari
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Education Research
Train about 48 STEM faculty and postdocs to approach education research as a design problem, using the ProQual Institute's 4-step program in interpretive research design.
Lance Perez
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NE·Education Research
Identify the rural assets and structural barriers that shape engineering awareness before college, through site visits and semi-structured interviews with principals, counselors and STEM teachers at rural Nebraska high schools.
The school
Kennesaw State University: 6 labs on PI Pages, $52M a year on research, 82 research doctorates a year.
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