| Abstract: | Soft or socio-technical systems methodology promises much for the task of engineering education, note least the way in which it promotes an inherently interdisciplinary mode of thinking. For this reason it is being advocated as a desirable framework to be fully integrated into the curriculum of any training programme. In this paper we briefly outline the development of ‘systems thinking’ and the form it has taken in the study of work and organisations. Next we consider some of the reservations which social scientists have expressed about such modes of thought. Finally we explore further the relationship between systems, interdisciplinarity and engineering education. |
