Work in progress: Analysis of change in engineering construct knowledge

Interview transcripts from students (grades 2-4) were examined to measure change in understanding of engineering constructs using a coding scheme that is in development. The participants were students of teachers from a large, urban school-district that participated in two summer teacher professional development (TPD) engineering education academies and received continued support from a university center devoted to P-12 engineering education. To analyze the interviews, the overarching themes were broken into eight constructs that were points of focus during the TPD. Sample results show change in all mean scores. The inter-coder reliability for this iteration of scheme development was 91.3%. Scored level of understanding of the constructs (on a scale of 0-3) produced 75% agreement. The coding scheme continues to be refined in an effort to provide a form of evaluation of TPD and teacher effectiveness that identifies weaknesses in curriculum design and implementation.

[1]  L. Katehi,et al.  Engineering in K-12 Education: Understanding the Status and Improving the Prospects. , 2009 .

[2]  Heidi A. Diefes-Dux,et al.  What is an Engineer? Implications of Elementary School Student Conceptions for Engineering Education , 2011 .

[3]  H.A. Diefes-Dux,et al.  What is engineering? — An Exploration of P-6 grade teachers’ perspectives , 2007, 2007 37th Annual Frontiers In Education Conference - Global Engineering: Knowledge Without Borders, Opportunities Without Passports.

[4]  Ronald L. Carr.  Integrating Engineering Design Challenges into Secondary STEM Education , 2011 .

[5]  Lyn D. English,et al.  Mathematical Modelling With Young Learners , 2003 .

[6]  Wolff-Michael Rolf.  Knowledge Diffusion in a Grade 4-5 Classroom during a Unit on Civil Engineering: An Analysis of a Classroom Community in Terms of Its Changing Resources and Practices. , 1996 .

[7]  Heidi A. Diefes-Dux,et al.  Change in Elementary Student Conceptions of Engineering Following an Intervention as Seen from the Draw-an-Engineer Test , 2012 .

[8]  Christine M. Cunningham,et al.  Draw an Engineer Test (DAET): Development of a Tool to Investigate Students' Ideas about Engineers and Engineering , 2004 .

[9]  Derrick Tate,et al.  Problems Associated with a Lack of Cohesive Policy in K-12 Pre-college Engineering , 2011 .

[10]  Christine Cunningham,et al.  AC 2007-8: ENGINEERING IS ELEMENTARY: AN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY CURRICULUM FOR CHILDREN , 2007 .

[11]  Johannes Strobel,et al.  Engineering in the K‐12 STEM Standards of the 50 U.S. States: An Analysis of Presence and Extent , 2012 .