Measuring sharedness of mental models in architectural and engineering design teams
Year: 2013
Editor: Udo Lindemann, Srinivasan V, Yong Se Kim, Sang Won Lee, John Clarkson, Gaetano Cascini
Author: Casakin, Hernan; Badke-Schaub, Petra
Series: ICED
Institution: 1: Ariel University, Israel; 2: Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Page(s): 169-178
ISBN: 978-1-904670-50-6
ISSN: 2220-4334
Abstract
The study presented in this paper investigates the development of sharedness of mental models in situations of design problem solving. A basic assumption is that sharedness of individual mental models is attained through verbal communication. Thus, the basic theoretical framework we developed is based on the classification of verbal communication occurring during the design process. The application of the theoretically based classification focuses on the dynamic development of mental models in heterogeneous design teams. The empirical study is based on observational data from a meeting of two design teams belonging to the engineering and architectural discipline. Whereas sharedness is supposed to be attained from the earlier phases of the design process, this might vary for design acts in which explicit coordination is still necessary. We explore coordination in both teams through two main phases of the design meetings.
Keywords: Design problem solving, teamwork, mental model, coordination, sharedness