"I think it’s a sad situation where, within myself, I’m thinking of making this design as original to myself as I can be – I feel like I’m putting myself at a disadvantage." - Student Interviewee

Engineering education strives to develop various competencies in graduates, and these range from the interpersonal (communication and teamwork) to personal attributes (problem solving and data analysis). Design, is not only considered an activity that can be used to develop such competencies, but design is closely related to engineering practice and is ubiquitous in engineering curricula globally. Engineering design is often taught, and is a requirement for many accrediting bodies, as a practical, hands-on experience with students working in groups on significant projects.

For many programmes, engineering design takes place in an academic context and it is widely understood that students' behaviours and development are influenced not only by the explicit intended learning outcomes, but also those intangible and often unplanned aspects of the social context.

In this in-depth study we explore how these unexpected outcomes in students behaviours and the informing assumptions, expectations and beliefs held by students as they undertake a significant design project. This study looks at the case of chemical engineering undergraduates taking a capstone design project at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK. Students work in groups for an entire 14-week semester to fulfill the requirements of a brief to design a chemical plant. The study included three-deliveries of design.

The overarching research method employed involved grounded theory (GT), a qualitative research approach with a strong emphasis on iterative process of analytically-informed data collection and inductive analysis. The result is a socio-psychological theory of behaviour that is grounded in the lived reality of participants. Over 79 hours of non-participatory observations of supervisory meetings were made and 21 semi-structured interviews conducted with students at varying stages of their design and beyond.

The results of this analysis suggests the critical social practice for the design project students under investigation was a process of comparing. Students use this approach to orientate to design problems and make sense of design requirements. Comparing is also a means through which students source feedback on their tentative solutions, through formal and informal routes. These findings are significant for educators who wish to consider the nuance of contexts and impact these can have, often detrimentally, on development of desirable student attributes such as creativity.

Keywords: Engineering Design, Situated Qualitative Research, Social Practices, Grounded Theory.