VUCA challenges on the design-engineering student spectrum

Abstract

137 students and 12 staff from a spectrum of three leading design and design engineering (D&DE) courses were surveyed using a VUCA framework. The VUCA acronym has been widely adopted from the US military as a basis for developing leadership and management responses to increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous contexts. The research was motivated by student concerns about Ambiguity in their learning together with the widely recognised need for D&DE courses to transform in response to contemporary pedagogic contexts. Participants were 1st and 3rd year degree students which also provided the basis for a longitudinal perspective of VUCA factors. The results show that psychosocial or affective factors are a significant area for attention in D&DE student learning, although there is evidence that courses do mitigate negative effects, to an extent, between 1st and 3rd year. A new framework is presented for clarifying VUCA factors in D&DE learning and as a basis for faculty attention and development in pedagogy.