ISSUES IN LEARNING ENGINEERING GRAPHICS FUNDAMENTALS: SHALL WE BLAME CAD?

Several studies report that many novice engineers result to be skilled in CAD but poor in knowledge of the basics, visualization and spatial skills and ability in freehand sketching. There is a debate on if such lack of fundamentals dues or not to the increasing role of CAD and the decreasing role of manual drawing in the basic courses of engineering graphics. This study aimed to investigate the issues related to the use of CAD and manual drawing in teaching engineering graphics fundamentals by a review of the literature of the Engineering Design Graphics Journal and the International Journal of Technology and Design Education from 2000 to date. It was found that current students: have a lower initial level of knowledge and experience; have little chance to develop sketching and visualization skills if trained only by CAD; and their assessment usually focuses more on CAD skills than on the knowledge of the basics. Solutions proposed to such issues are: introductory courses of manual drawing at college and high schools; assessment of students initial skills; and tests more focused on the knowledge of the rules and basics of engineering graphics language.