Understanding the design process may reveal when and where resources should be focused and how engineers can better use tools, methods, and techniques to enhance the quality of designs and creative performance. The literature suggests the importance of iterative evaluation and reformulation in the engineering design process. The current study collected 111 high school students’ logs of designing an energy-saving house in Energy3D, a computer-aided design environment. Using a cross-lag model, we investigated the reciprocal relationship between students’ evaluation and reformulation behaviors and how these behaviors influence students’ design performance at the early, middle, and final design stages. The results suggest that there is a positive predictive relationship between students’ evaluation and reformulation process; reformulation positively predicts design performance and mediates the relationship between evaluation and design performance across time. These results provide empirical evidence of the importance of iterative evaluation and reformulation in the design process and implications for teachers and system designers to support students’ design.

了解设计过程可能会揭示应该在何时何地集中资源，以及工程师如何更好地使用工具，方法和技术来提高设计质量和创意表现。文献表明在工程设计过程中迭代评估和重新制定的重要性。当前的研究收集了111位高中学生在Energy3D（一种计算机辅助设计环境）中设计节能房屋的日志。使用交叉滞后模型，我们调查了学生的评价与重新制定行为之间的相互关系，以及这些行为如何影响学生在早期，中期和最终设计阶段的设计性能。结果表明，学生的评价与重新制定过程之间存在正相关的预测关系。重新制定可以肯定地预测设计性能，并在整个过程中介导评估与设计性能之间的关系。这些结果提供了迭代评估和重新设计在设计过程中的重要性的经验证据，以及对教师和系统设计师支持学生设计的启示。