Collaborative Knowledge Construction and Decision-Making Strategies Among Engineering Students Tackling Ambiguous Design Challenges

Abstract

Ambiguous engineering design challenges require teams to make consequential decisions when problem boundaries, technical requirements, stakeholder priorities, and available evidence remain incomplete or contested. Such conditions make design performance dependent not only on individual technical competence but also on how knowledge is constructed, challenged, validated, and converted into collective commitments. This study investigates collaborative knowledge construction and decision-making strategies among engineering students tackling ambiguous design challenges. It examines team interactions through four analytical dimensions: knowledge contribution, epistemic negotiation, uncertainty management, and decision convergence. Particular attention is directed toward how students externalize tacit knowledge, question assumptions, reconcile conflicting technical interpretations, request evidence, establish design criteria, and negotiate trade-offs among feasibility, cost, safety, performance, and stakeholder requirements. The study further distinguishes consensus, evidence-based selection, majority preference, authority-driven decisions, and iterative comparison as alternative decision strategies. By tracing interaction episodes from initial ambiguity through knowledge integration, alternative evaluation, and design commitment, the research identifies mechanisms through which collaborative reasoning strengthens or constrains decision quality. The resulting framework supports engineering educators in designing team activities that promote equitable knowledge contribution, explicit justification, productive disagreement, uncertainty recognition, and defensible collective design decisions.