Engineering judgment: development of a definition

A consensus-driven, emergent definition and model of engineering judgment for educational and professional purposes is presented. This article describes the model development using a Delphi study grounded in existing literature. The literature includes numerous concepts of engineering judgment; however, a concrete definition that integrates them has been absent. This has limited instruction and assessment in engineering education despite Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) required outcomes. The study collected responses from 18 experts during three rounds, with an inductive content analysis of their qualitative responses primarily driving model development. Panelists’ ratings of the relevance of existing concepts of engineering judgment supported model development by reinforcing the inductive analysis. The concepts Decision Making and Application of Knowledge/Experience garnered strong panelist support. Samples of the panelists’ responses and quantitative summaries are presented. This research is contributing to the needed conversation in engineering education about judgment, which is critical for today’s engineers.