Engineering thinking: The experts' perspective

Most student graduates in engineering schools are involved inengineering design, that is, the development of new products for which engineering thinkingis required. Our literature survey, however, did not yield material pertaining to engineering design thinking in the field of electrical and electronic engineering. Therefore, we propose to clarify the term 'engineering thinking'. Specifically, this paper presents a characterization of engineering thinking in general, and electric and electronic engineering thinking, inparticular, from the point of view of experienced engineers. Inaddition, tohighlight the uniqueness of engineering thinking, we compare engineering thinking inengineering design and research thinking in scientific research in the area of the exact sciences.