Engineering Commons^™

Supporting Adolescent Metacognition In Engineering Design Through Scripted Prompts From Peer Tutors: A Comparative Case Study, Kristin Marie Strong

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 2013, developers of the Next Generation Science Standards implemented national K-12 directives and elevated engineering design to the level of scientific inquiry. Teaching design, however, is challenging to educators due to the complex nature of design problems, which cannot be solved via simple algorithms. Solving design problems requires a more reflective and iterative approach that emphasizes metacognitive skills like planning, monitoring, and taking another person’s perspective. Educators are further challenged by children’s immature metacognitive skills, which may be insufficient to engage in the entire design process.

A qualitative study of paired seventh graders demonstrated a pragmatic learning activity for …

Search And Review Of The Literature On Engineering Design Challenges In Secondary School Settings, Matthew Lammi, Cameron Denson, Paul Asunda

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

Engineering design activities offer the promise of enhanced learning and teaching in pre-college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) settings. The wide variation and lack of coherence in research and practice concerning pre-college engineering design challenges necessitates an investigation of the literature. The overarching research question guiding this search and review of literature was, ‘‘How are engineering design challenges conceptualized in pre-college environments?’’ A search and review coupled with iterative thematic analysis was employed to understand and conceptualize the current body of literature on pre-college engineering design challenges. It is anticipated that this review will provide a general picture of …

The Impact Of Functional Modeling On Engineering Students' Mental Models, Jacob T. Nelson

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The ability to understand complexity and think holistically about systems is an increasingly important part of engineering design. This is embodied in the concept of systems thinking, a concept studied primarily in the fields of systems dynamics and systems engineering. Systems thinking ability is built off mental models, a loosely-defined construct people form to make predictions about their surroundings. Methods to evaluate systems thinking and underlying mental models rely primarily on self-evaluative methods such as questionnaires, or detailed simulations of systems or processes; however these methods fail to directly capture students’ design tendencies. This work presents a visual instrument used …