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

Journal

2017

Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Supporting Mechanistic Reasoning In Domain-Specific Contexts, Paul J. Weinberg Dec 2017

Supporting Mechanistic Reasoning In Domain-Specific Contexts, Paul J. Weinberg

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

Mechanistic reasoning is an epistemic practice central within science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. Although there has been some work on mechanistic reasoning in the research literature and standards documents, much of this work targets domain-general characterizations of mechanistic reasoning; this study provides domain-specific illustrations of mechanistic reasoning. The data in this study comes from the Assessment of Mechanistic Reasoning Project (AMRP) (Weinberg, 2012), designed using item response theory modeling to diagnose individuals’ mechanistic reasoning about systems of levers. Such a characterization of mechanistic reasoning illuminates what is easy and difficult about this form of reasoning, within the subdomain of …

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Latinx And Caucasian Elementary School Children’S Knowledge Of And Interest In Engineering Activities, Gamze Ozogul, Cindy Faith Miller, Martin Reisslein Oct 2017

Latinx And Caucasian Elementary School Children’S Knowledge Of And Interest In Engineering Activities, Gamze Ozogul, Cindy Faith Miller, Martin Reisslein

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

Ethnic minorities, such as Latinx people of Hispanic or Latino origin, and women earn fewer engineering degrees than Caucasians and men. With shifting population dynamics and high demands for a technically qualified workforce, it is important to achieve broad participation in the engineering workforce by all ethnicities and both genders. Previous research has examined the knowledge of and interest in engineering among students in grades five and higher. In contrast, the present study examined elementary school students in grades K–5. The study found that older students in grades 4 and 5 had both greater knowledge of engineering occupational activities and …

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Approaches To Integrating Engineering In Stem Units And Student Achievement Gains, Elizabeth A. Crotty, Selcen S. Guzey, Gillian H. Roehrig, Aran W. Glancy, Elizabeth A. Ring-Whalen, Tamara J. Moore Sep 2017

Approaches To Integrating Engineering In Stem Units And Student Achievement Gains, Elizabeth A. Crotty, Selcen S. Guzey, Gillian H. Roehrig, Aran W. Glancy, Elizabeth A. Ring-Whalen, Tamara J. Moore

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

This study examined different approaches to integrating engineering practices in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curriculum units. These various approaches were correlated with student outcomes on engineering assessment items. There are numerous reform documents in the USA and around the world that emphasize the need to incorporate engineering into science education. The authors of this study contend that different approaches to integrating engineering in STEM units correlate to larger student achievement gains in engineering, based on assessment items developed from the Framework for Quality K–12 Engineering Education (Moore, Glancy, Tank, Kersten, & Smith, 2014). The goal of this work …

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Mathematical Description And Mechanistic Reasoning: A Pathway Toward Stem Integration, Paul J. Weinberg Jul 2017

Mathematical Description And Mechanistic Reasoning: A Pathway Toward Stem Integration, Paul J. Weinberg

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

Because reasoning about mechanism is critical to disciplined inquiry in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) domains, this study focuses on ways to support the development of this form of reasoning. This study attends to how mechanistic reasoning is constituted through mathematical description. This study draws upon Smith’s (2007) characterization of mathematical description of scientific phenomena as ‘‘bootstrapping,’’ where negotiating the relationship between target phenomena and represented relations is fundamental to learning. In addition, the development of mathematical representation presents a viable pathway towards STEM integration. In this study, participants responded to an assessment of mechanistic reasoning while cognitive interviews …

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Teachers’ Incorporation Of Argumentation To Support Engineering Learning In Stem Integration Curricula, Corey A. Mathis, Emilie A. Siverling, Aran W. Glancy, Tamara J. Moore Jun 2017

Teachers’ Incorporation Of Argumentation To Support Engineering Learning In Stem Integration Curricula, Corey A. Mathis, Emilie A. Siverling, Aran W. Glancy, Tamara J. Moore

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

One of the fundamental practices identified in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is argumentation, which has been researched in P-12 science education for the previous two decades but has yet to be studied within the context of P-12 engineering education. This research explores how elementary and middle school science teachers incorporated argumentation into engineering design-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) integration curricular units they developed during a professional development program. To gain a better understanding of how teachers included argumentation in their curricula, a multiple case study approach was conducted using four STEM integration units. While evidence of argumentation …

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Students’ Successes And Challenges Applying Data Analysis And Measurement Skills In A Fifth-Grade Integrated Stem Unit, Aran W. Glancy, Tamara J. Moore, Selcen Guzey, Karl A. Smith Jun 2017

Students’ Successes And Challenges Applying Data Analysis And Measurement Skills In A Fifth-Grade Integrated Stem Unit, Aran W. Glancy, Tamara J. Moore, Selcen Guzey, Karl A. Smith

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

An understanding of statistics and skills in data analysis are becoming more and more essential, yet research consistently shows that students struggle with these concepts at all levels. This case study documents some of the struggles four groups of fifth-grade students encounter as they collect, organize, and interpret data and then ultimately attempt to draw conclusions or make decisions based on these data. The activities in which the students engaged were part of an integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) unit that had students collecting and analyzing data both in the context of learning science concepts and in the …

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Perspectives On Failure In The Classroom By Elementary Teachers New To Teaching Engineering, Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Elizabeth A. Parry Jun 2017

Perspectives On Failure In The Classroom By Elementary Teachers New To Teaching Engineering, Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Elizabeth A. Parry

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

This mixed methods study examines perspectives on failure in the classroom by elementary teachers new to teaching engineering. The study participants included 254 teachers in third, fourth, and fifth grade who responded to survey questions about failure, as well as a subset of 38 of those teachers who participated in interviews about failure. The study first examines the literature about failure in the contexts of engineering and education. Failure is positioned as largely normative and expected in engineering, whereas in education, learning and failure have a more tenuous relationship. Identity, failure avoidance, failure as part of the learning process, growth …

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Undergraduate Engineers And Teachers: Can Students Be Both?, Malinda S. Zarske, Maia L. Vadeen, Janet Y. Tsai, Jacquelyn F. Sullivan, Denise W. Carlson Jun 2017

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 …

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Examining Experienced Teachers’ Noticing Of And Responses To Students’ Engineering, Aaron W. Johnson, Kristen B. Wendell, Jessica Watkins Jun 2017

Examining Experienced Teachers’ Noticing Of And Responses To Students’ Engineering, Aaron W. Johnson, Kristen B. Wendell, Jessica Watkins

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

Engineering design places unique demands on teachers, as students are coming up with new, unanticipated ideas to problems along often unpredictable trajectories. These demands motivate a responsive approach to teaching, in which teachers attend their students’ thinking and flexibly adapt their instructional plans and objectives. A great deal of literature has focused on responsive teaching in science and mathematics, but there has been little research or professional development on this approach in engineering. In this work, we conducted clinical video-based interviews with six elementary teachers experienced in teaching engineering to discuss what they noticed in their students’ thinking and how …

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Elementary Teachers’ Reflections On Design Failures And Use Of Fail Words After Teaching Engineering For Two Years, Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Elizabeth A. Parry Jun 2017

Elementary Teachers’ Reflections On Design Failures And Use Of Fail Words After Teaching Engineering For Two Years, Pamela S. Lottero-Perdue, Elizabeth A. Parry

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

This mixed-methods study examines how teachers who have taught one or two units of the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) curriculum for two years reported on: students’ responses to design failure; the ways in which they, the teachers, supported these students and used fail words (e.g. fail, failure); and the teachers’ broad perspectives and messages to students about failure. In addition, the study explores how strategies, perspectives, messages, and fail word use may change after two years of engineering instruction. This study builds on previous work about elementary teachers’: perspectives on failure prior to teaching engineering, and responses to and perspectives …

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Reasoning Strategies In The Context Of Engineering Design With Everyday Materials, Marcelo Worsley, Paulo Blikstein Mar 2017

Reasoning Strategies In The Context Of Engineering Design With Everyday Materials, Marcelo Worsley, Paulo Blikstein

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

‘‘Making’’ represents an increasingly popular label for describing a form of engineering design. While making is growing in popularity, there are still open questions about the strategies that students are using in these activities. Assessing and improving learning in making/ engineering design contexts require that we have a better understanding of where students’ ideas are coming from and a better way to characterize student progress in open-ended learning environments. In this article, we use a qualitative analysis of students’ responses (N = 13) in order to identify the origins of their ideas. Four strategies emerged from this analysis: unexplained …

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Reading And Engineering: Elementary Students’ Co-Application Of Comprehension Strategies And Engineering Design Processes, Amy Wilson-Lopez, Stacie Gregory, Victor Larsen Jan 2017

Reading And Engineering: Elementary Students’ Co-Application Of Comprehension Strategies And Engineering Design Processes, Amy Wilson-Lopez, Stacie Gregory, Victor Larsen

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

For decades, researchers have asserted that K–12 teachers should embed reading comprehension instruction within each academic discipline, including ‘‘technical subjects’’ such as engineering. Recently, this assertion has become a source of controversy among researchers and practitioners who believe that time spent on teaching reading comprehension strategies may detract from time spent on more authentic activities such as engineering design. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate whether and how elementary students’ applications of comprehension strategies overlapped with their application of engineering design processes. The authors provided comprehension strategy instruction to 57 third- and fifth-grade students as they read …

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Disciplinary Differences In Out-Of-School High School Science Experiences And Influence On Students’ Engineering Choices, Allison Godwin, Gerhard Sonnert, Philip M. Sadler Jan 2017

Disciplinary Differences In Out-Of-School High School Science Experiences And Influence On Students’ Engineering Choices, Allison Godwin, Gerhard Sonnert, Philip M. Sadler

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

Participation from a variety of students is important to the long-term growth of the engineering field. Much of the research on engineering recruitment or career choice has focused on engineering as a whole, even though engineering disciplines are varied in student participation and focus. This work examines how students’ out-of-school interests and experiences in high school predict the likelihood of choosing a career in a particular engineering discipline. Out-of-school experiences offer more unstructured ways for students to meaningfully engage with science and engineering outside of the confines of the classroom. These experiences offer opportunities to spark particular science interests not …

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