The Impact of Idea Goodness and Gender on Ownership Bias in Engineering Design Education

Abstract

Because concept selection may affect the final design's direction, it is an important step in the engineering design 
process. Although structured selection techniques have been established to improve its efficacy and lessen human 
decision-making biases, a deeper understanding of these biases via study may serve as a basis for enhancing the 
selection process. Ownership bias, or an inadvertent preference for one's own ideas over those of others, is a 
significant prejudice that arises throughout this process. Few research, however, have examined ownership bias 
in a design context and the impact of other variables like the designer's gender or the "goodness" of an idea. A 
research involving 110 engineering students was carried out to comprehend the influence of these aspects on 
engineering design education. According to the study's findings, male students often exhibit ownership bias when 
choosing concepts by choosing more of their own ideas, but female students typically exhibit the opposite bias, 
known as the Halo Effect, by choosing more of their teammates' ideas. Additionally, when it came to ideas that 
were deemed excellent or high quality, participants showed ownership bias; yet, when it came to ideas that were 
not, they showed the reverse prejudice. These findings contribute to our knowledge of the variables influencing 
team concept selection and provide empirical proof of ownership bias as well as the impacts of gender and idea 
quality in engineering design education