Experts vs. Novices: Differences in How Mental Representations are Used in Engineering Design

The results of this study paint a picture of how four professional engineers differ from six engineering students in their use of mental representations on a conceptual engineering design task. Three major conclusions are drawn from the findings: (1) The use of mental representations, such as propositions, analogies, and metaphors, in the different mental spaces is important in engineering design; (2) Different from novices, experts rarely employed propositions or analogies in their problem space; and (3) Expert engineering designers differ from novice engineering designers on their use of within-domain analogies, between-domain analogies, heuristics, and formulas.