Toward a Strategy for Teaching Engineering Design

A bstract Design is behavior. Therefore, it can best be understood by means of behavioral theory and must be taught in a way consistent with the theory of behavior modification. This simple fact appears to have been overlooked by most, if not all, engineering educators who teach design courses or write textbooks on engineering design. This article examines this thesis and its relationship to engineering heuristics by considering specific examples taken from current practice in engineering design education.