Education Commons^™

Abrupt Shift Or Caught Off Guard: A Systematic Review Of K-12 Engineering And Stem Education’S Response To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ibrahim Delen, Tugba Yuksel

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

In the past hundred years, there have been a number of pandemics that have affected the entire world, including the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic, the 1957 H2N2 influenza pandemic, and the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. While responses to the most recent H1N1 influenza pandemic remained local, the COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, resulted in long-term school closures all around the world, prompting a sudden shift to distant education by compelling K-12 educators and students to do so. The purpose of this study is to find out how K-12 education studies reacted to the sudden shift in supporting engineering and …

Insights From Two Decades Of P-12 Engineering Education Research, Cary I. Sneider, Mihir K. Ravel

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The 21st century has seen a growing movement in the United States towards the adoption of engineering and technology as a complement to science education. Motivated by this shift, this article offers insights into engineering education for grades P-12, based on a landscape review of 263 empirical research studies spanning the two decades from January 2000 to June 2021. These insights are organized around three core themes: (1) students’ understandings, skills, and attitudes about engineering and technology; (2) effective methods of P-12 engineering education; and (3) benefits of P-12 engineering education. The insights are captured in the form of evidence-based …

Enhancing Preservice Teachers’ Intention To Integrate Engineering Through A Cross-Disciplinary Model, Francisco Cima, Pilar Pazos, Jennifer Kidd, Kristie Gutierrez, Stacie Ringleb, Orlando Ayala, Krishnanand Kaipa

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Although elementary educators recognize the importance of integrating engineering in their classrooms, many feel challenged and unprepared to teach engineering content. The absence of effective engineering instruction in teacher preparation programs leaves future educators unprepared for this challenge. Ed+gineering is an NSF-funded cross-disciplinary model between education and engineering aimed at increasing preservice teachers’ preparation, confidence, and intention to integrate engineering into their teaching. Ed+gineering partners education and engineering students in cross-disciplinary teams within the context of their respective university courses. As part of their coursework, the teams plan and deliver culturally responsive engineering lessons to elementary school students under the …

Do After-School Robotics Programs Expand The Pipeline Into Stem Majors In College?, Cathy Burack, Alan Melchior, Matthew Hoover

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

One result of the growing concerns over the numbers of young people moving into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)-related careers has been the expansion of formal and informal STEM education programming for pre-college youth, from elementary school through high school. While the number of programs has grown rapidly, there is little research on their long-term impacts on participant education and career trajectories. This paper presents interim findings from a multi-year longitudinal study of three national after-school robotics programs that engage students in designing, building, and competing complex robots with the goal of inspiring long-term interest in STEM. Focusing on …

Argument-Driven Engineering In Middle School Science: An Exploratory Study Of Changes In Engineering Identity Over An Academic Year, Lawrence Chu, Victor Sampson, Todd L. Hutner, Stephanie Rivale, Richard H. Crawford, Christina L. Baze, Hannah S. Brooks

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The goal of this study was to examine how the use of a new instructional model is related to changes in middle school students’ engineering identity. The intent of this instructional model, which is called argument-driven engineering (ADE), is to give students opportunities to design and critique solutions to meaningful problems using the core ideas and practices of science and engineering. The model also reflects current recommendations found in the literature for supporting the development or maintenance of engineering identity. This study took place in the context of an eighth-grade science classroom in order to explore how middle school students’ …

Disciplinary Learning From An Authentic Engineering Context, Catherine Langman, Judith Zawojewski, Patricia Mcnicholas, Ali Cinar, Eric Brey, Mustafa Bilgic, Hamidreza Mehdizadeh

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

This small-scale design study describes disciplinary learning in mathematical modeling and science from an authentic engineeringthemed module. Current research in tissue engineering served as source material for the module, including science content for readings and a mathematical modeling activity in which students work in small teams to design a model in response to a problem from a client. The design of the module was guided by well-established principles of model-eliciting activities (a special class of problem-solving activities deeply studied in mathematics education) and recently published implementation design principles, which emphasize the portability of model-eliciting activities to many classroom settings.

Two …

Assessing Mechanistic Reasoning: Supporting Systems Tracing, Paul J. Weinberg

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Reasoning about mechanism is central to disciplined inquiry in science and engineering and should thus be one of the foundations of a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. In addition, mechanistic reasoning is one of the core competencies listed in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Engineering Concepts and Practices (NGSS Lead States, 2013). Mechanistic explanations focus on the processes that underlie cause–effect relationships and consider how the activities of system components affect one another.

While some assessment work has been accomplished in engineering education, to date mechanistic reasoning is an area where limited assessment development has been accomplished for …

Exploring Problem-Based Learning For Middle School Design And Engineering Education In Digital Fabrication Laboratories, Monica M. Chan, Paulo Blikstein

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

This is a research study of design and engineering classes that use a problem-based learning (PBL) approach in digital fabrication makerspaces in two middle schools. In these studies, teachers employ a PBL approach and provide an ill-structured problem scenario to facilitate design and engineering lessons in the FabLab (fabrication laboratory). Students in each school tackled different challenges that they defined for themselves in groups. This study provides examples of student-student interactions separated into key themes—defining specifications with teammates, personal exploration, and communication about discoveries. This study also provides examples of teacher-student interactions, and themes include demonstrations with tangible objects, discussing …

Undergraduate Engineers And Teachers: Can Students Be Both?, Malinda S. Zarske, Maia L. Vadeen, Janet Y. Tsai, Jacquelyn F. Sullivan, Denise W. Carlson

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Today’s college-aged students are graduating into a world that relies on multidisciplinary talents to succeed. Engineering college majors are more likely to find jobs after college that are outside of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, including jobs in healthcare, management, and social services. A survey of engineering undergraduate students at the University of Colorado Boulder in November 2012 indicated a desire by students to simultaneously pursue secondary teacher licensure alongside their engineering degrees: 25 percent ‘‘agreed’’ or ‘‘strongly agreed’’ that they ‘‘would be interested in earning grades 7–12 science or math teaching licenses while [they] earn [their] engineering …

Race, Class And Gender In Engineering Education: A Quantitative Investigation Of First Year Enrollment, Canek Moises Luna Phillips

Open Access Dissertations

Research explanations for the disparity across both race and gender in engineering education has typically relied on a deficit model, whereby women and people of color lack the requisite knowledge or psychological characteristics that Whites and men have to become engineers in sufficient numbers. Instead of using a deficit model approach to explain gender and race disparity, in the three studies conducted for this dissertation, I approach gender and race disparity as the result of processes of segregation linked to the historic and on-going perpetuation of systemic sources of oppression in the United States. In the first study, I investigate …

A Phenomenographic Study Of The Ability To Address Complex Socio-Technical Systems Via Variation Theory, John A. Mendoza Garcia

Open Access Dissertations

Sometimes engineers fail when addressing the inherent complexity of socio-technical systems because they lack the ability to address the complexity of socio-technical systems. Teaching undergraduate engineering students how to address complex socio-technical systems, has been an educational endeavor at different levels ranging from kindergarten to post-graduate education. The literature presents different pedagogical strategies and content to reach this goal. However, there are no existing empirically-based assessments guided by a learning theory. This may be because at the same time explanations of how the skill is developed are scarce.

My study bridges this gap, and I propose a developmental path for …

Student Success: Approaches To Modeling Student Matriculation And Retention, Jien-Jou Lin

Open Access Dissertations

Every year a group of graduates from high schools enter the engineering programs across this country with remarkable academic record. However, as reported in numerous studies, the number of students switching out of engineering majors continues to be an important issue. Previous studies have suggested various factors as predictors for student retention in engineering. To assist the engineering students with timely advising early in their program, an effective prediction model of matriculation and retention in engineering that use available student data are highly desirable.

In the first part of this work, the author developed new prediction models of student retention …

Examining The Effects Of Computational Tools On Students' Conceptual Understanding Of Thermodynamics Of Material Concepts And Representations, Oyindamola Oluwatimi

Open Access Theses

Technology is becoming a more critical agent for supporting learning as well as research in science and engineering. In particular, technology-based tools in the form of simulations and virtual environments support learning using mathematical models and computational methods. The purpose of this research is to: (a) measure the value added in conveying Thermodynamics of materials concepts with a blended learning environment using computational simulation tools with lectures; and (b) characterize students' use of representational forms to convey their conceptual understanding of core concepts within a learning environment that blended Gibbs computational resource and traditional lectures.

A mix-method approach was implemented …