BEST FITS, DARK HORSES, AND COGNITIVE STYLE: INVESTIGATING DIFFERENCES IN DESIGN SOLUTION PERCEPTIONS

In industry, engineering design teams can be asked to produce design solutions that clearly follow given specifications and constraints of a problem (i.e., Best Fit solutions), or they may be encouraged to provide higher risk design solutions that challenge those constraints, but offer other potential rewards (i.e., Dark Horse solutions). This study utilized a self-assessment tool to investigate designers' perceptions of their teams' Best Fit and Dark Horse solutions. Kirton's Adaption-Innovation theory of cognitive style provided the framework to explore the impacts of cognitive style on design solution perceptions. The study involved 17 design teams of 3-5 individuals (64 participants) from five different professional organizations, with each team generating one Best Fit solution and one Dark Horse solution in response to the same design prompt. Participants were then asked to place their team's Best Fit and Dark Horse solutions onto a "FUN diagram,"which is a ternary-style triangular diagram where the vertices correspond to Feasibility, Usefulness, or Novelty, respectively. The analysis of the responses showed that most adaptive and innovative individuals held distinct perceptions of their Best Fit and Dark Horse solutions, as reflected by their FUN diagram placements. While Best Fit solutions were more often perceived as being Feasible or Neutral, Dark Horse solutions were perceived as being Novel. More adaptive individuals perceived their Best Fit solutions as Feasible, whereas more innovative individuals perceived Best Fit solutions as Neutral. However, there was no apparent relationship between cognitive style and Dark Horse solution perceptions. Understanding more about how individuals perceived their Best Fit and Dark Horse solutions can enable engineering educators and industry practitioners to identify ways to support designers and teams more effectively.