Visualizing Engineering: A Practitioner’s Perspective on Engineering Education

Visualizations are integral to the fields of science and engineering, serving as essential tools for both education and professional practice. They encompass a diverse range of modalities, from illustrations to simulations, and play vital roles in facilitating conceptual understanding, scientific discovery, and communication. In engineering education, visual representations are fundamental to problem-solving approaches, requiring learners to navigate complex information through graphical, conceptual, and mathematical components. This paper delves into the role of visualizations as didactic external representations – emphasizing the importance of design choices informed by both empirical evidence and craft-based knowledge. We discuss the gap between visualization research and practice, and showcase visualization stimuli across various scientific subject matter, exemplifying the diverse applications and pedagogical potential of visualizations for engineering education. We also outline key research challenges and opportunities, advocating for partnership between visualization practitioners, researchers and educators to address these challenges.