ABSTRACT
Cognitive diagnosis of expertise relies on characterizing expertise in the domain. The focus of our work is on the design of digital circuits. In this domain, previous work was limited to analog circuits and simple combinational and sequential circuits. Studying the design of complex circuits allows greater possibilities for observing multiple levels of expertise as well as individual differences in design problem solving. In earlier work (James, Goldman, & Vandermolen, 1994; Vandermolen, James, Goldman, Biswas, & Bhuva, 1992) we focused on the design of a simpler digital circuit and the need for a richer design problem became apparent. Our investigation of complex digital circuit design had two major goals: to identify characteristics of design problem solving in this domain, and to determine how to appropriately characterize and differentiate among individuals using different design problem-solving processes. Because CMOS circuits are quite complex, expert designers attempt to catch flaws as early in the design process as possible. Hence, we were interested in characterizing the processes involved in producing the final design, with particular emphasis on how designers check for completeness and correctness of the final design.
