The Effect of a Broken Family free essay sample

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering 1998 Abstract This research investigated how social, environmental and ethical factors can be better included in theories of engineering design. The research focused on designing as an essentially human activity via consideration of the epistemological and ontological issues involved in constructing coherent design theory. The research investigations led to a clearer understanding of the roles of ontology, epistemology and methodology in design research and this clarification enabled the construction of a post-positivist approach to engineering design theory that better includes social, environmental and ethical factors alongside the existing products of scientific engineering design research. We will write a custom essay sample on The Effect of a Broken Family or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Other contributions to knowledge that emerged from the esearch process and which underpin the conclusions include; clarification of the terminology and basic concepts of design research and engineering design research, historical reviews of ways that the terms ‘design’ and ‘design process’ have been used in the literature of engineering design research and design research in the period 1962–1995, clarification of the role of disciplinary structure in the development of coherent design theories, the development of conceptual tools and perspectives for the epistemic, critical and meta-theoretical analysis of engineering design theory, and the development of a new meta-theoretical structure that offers the basis for unifying the theories and disciplinary structures of design research and engineering design research. Table of Contents Some of Archer’s sub-disciplinary categories have declined in popularity, and others are still in contemporary use, but there is little agreement on either their precise definition, or on the precise areas of scholarly endeavour which they describe. Nearly twenty years after Archer’s comments, the subdisciplines of design research have still not stabilised (Cross 1997). In January 1997, Cross reported on a preliminary internal review by the Design Research Society of keywords from papers published in Design Studies from 1992 to 1995—these would be expected to represent the sub-disciplinary and conceptual categories of design research. Over 200 different keywords had been used across 96 papers and out of this selection, 170 were used only once and a further 28 were used only twice. Further evidence of the lack of agreement about the sub-disciplinary categories of design research is evidenced also by the predominance of lightly populated categories in a database of design researchers’ areas of research interest (DesignWeb Researchers’ Database 1996). Both the review of keywords in Design Studies and the categories of the DesignWeb Researchers’ Database point to the sub-disciplinary structure of design research being fragmented and confused. The choice of key terms that are discussed and defined in this section is guided by their relevance to this research and their importance in clarifying the analysis of disciplinary issues relevant to resolving the research problem. The majority of the terms are domain independent. In many cases, associated domain dependent sub-disciplinary titles can be found by prefixing a domain name, for example, ‘engineering design history’ is one of the domain dependent aspects of ‘design history’. The six sub-disciplinary terms whose usage is analysed in this section are, * Design History * Design Studies * Design Research * Design Thinking * Design Science * Science of Design The term ‘design history’ has two meanings in the literature, * The historically based classification and interpretation of designed artefacts, design methods and design cultures which have developed in different cultures over time. * The history of the conceptual development of a particular designed artefact.