Teaching and assessing engineering design thinking with virtual internships and epistemic network analysis

An engineering workforce of sufficient size and quality is essential for addressing significant global challenges such asclimate change, world hunger, and energy demand. Future generations of engineers will need to identify challenging issuesand design innovative solutions. To prepare young people to solve big and increasingly global problems, researchers andeducators need to understand how we can best educate young people to use engineering design thinking. In this paper, weexplore virtual internships, online simulations of 21st-century engineering design practice, as one method for teachingengineering design thinking. To assess the engineering design thinking, we use epistemic network analysis (ENA), a tool formeasuring complex thinking as it develops over time based on discourse analysis. The combination of virtual internshipsand ENA provides opportunities for students to engage in authentic engineering design, potentially receive concurrentfeedback on their engineering design thinking, and develop the identity, values, and ways of thinking of professionalengineers.