Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Education Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Journal

Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

Assessment

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

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Education

Assessing Mechanistic Reasoning: Supporting Systems Tracing, Paul J. Weinberg Dec 2018

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 …