Reflective practice in engineering design

Civil engineers are valued by society for their knowledge and skills which, though based on theory, are forged through experience. Indeed, the real world is a messy place of complex, interacting systems which time and time again demonstrate the inadequacies of engineering theory. The scientific approach to engineering education does not equip graduates effectively for professional practice. This paper introduces the concept of 'reflective practice', explains how it can be formalized and suggests that it should be adopted alongside the traditional technical rationality approach to teaching engineering design. It involves analysing past failures, using artificial intelligence and, above all, looking at the big picture.