Education Commons^™

Changes In Latino/A Adolescents' Engineering Self-Efficacy And Perceptions Of Engineering After Addressing Authentic Engineering Design Challenges, J. A. Mejia, D. Drake, Amy Wilson-Lopez

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Community-based engineering design activities were used to provide Latino/a adolescents with authentic engineering experiences with the intention of increasing their engineering self-efficacy and changing their perceptions of engineering. Twenty five Latino/a adolescents (ages 14 to 17)- most of whom were either immigrants or English learners - were purposefully selected to work on different community-based engineering design activities, which are engineering experiences where the adolescents had the opportunity to research, analyze, and/or design solutions to problems affecting their community. The adolescents worked in teams of three or four members over the course of one school year to develop a solution to …