Abstract: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 … Show more
“…Dutson, Todd, Magleby, and Sorensen (1997), in their literature review research, aimed to provide information related to EDP through project-oriented capstone courses. Furthermore, Lammi, Denson, and Asunda (2018) also aimed to investigate the EDP in middle school settings. Mesutoglu and Baran (2020) conducted a meta-analysis of articles relating to the integration of engineering into teacher professional development programs.…”
Engineering is one of the crucial parts of STEM Education. The Engineering Design Process (EDP) is a new trend within science education reform. Most science teachers lack information regarding the usage of EDP in learning science. This study aims to review 40 articles from reputable international journals such as indexed by Scopus and Web of Science (WoS), which explains the steps of the EDP used in science education. The articles selected for review were the ones published in the last ten years, from 2011 to 2020. Some previous literature review studies focused on the EDP through projectoriented capstone courses, the EDP in middle school settings, and how to implement the EDP in science learning. However, this study focuses on the steps of the EDP used in science education (Science, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and a combination of science with other disciplines). In addition, this research also explains the strengths and weaknesses of EDP in science education. The research approach used was a systematic literature review. This study analyzed the representation of research according to their general characteristics consists of type of publication, year of publication, country, research approach, educational level, and science content. This study found that research on the EDP that is implemented at the university level is still limited, especially on subjects related to interdisciplinary knowledge. Furthermore, the steps of the EDP used in science education differ from one research to another. The most commonly used steps of the EDP are defining the problem, building, testing, evaluating, and redesigning. There are also several obstacles to the implementation of the EDP in science education. Regardless, the implementation has a positive influence on students, undergraduate students, teachers, or others. The results of this study provide an overview of how to implement the EDP in science education. Thus, it can be used as a reference for stakeholders in the field of science education when implementing EDP in their learning.
“…Dutson, Todd, Magleby, and Sorensen (1997), in their literature review research, aimed to provide information related to EDP through project-oriented capstone courses. Furthermore, Lammi, Denson, and Asunda (2018) also aimed to investigate the EDP in middle school settings. Mesutoglu and Baran (2020) conducted a meta-analysis of articles relating to the integration of engineering into teacher professional development programs.…”
Engineering is one of the crucial parts of STEM Education. The Engineering Design Process (EDP) is a new trend within science education reform. Most science teachers lack information regarding the usage of EDP in learning science. This study aims to review 40 articles from reputable international journals such as indexed by Scopus and Web of Science (WoS), which explains the steps of the EDP used in science education. The articles selected for review were the ones published in the last ten years, from 2011 to 2020. Some previous literature review studies focused on the EDP through projectoriented capstone courses, the EDP in middle school settings, and how to implement the EDP in science learning. However, this study focuses on the steps of the EDP used in science education (Science, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and a combination of science with other disciplines). In addition, this research also explains the strengths and weaknesses of EDP in science education. The research approach used was a systematic literature review. This study analyzed the representation of research according to their general characteristics consists of type of publication, year of publication, country, research approach, educational level, and science content. This study found that research on the EDP that is implemented at the university level is still limited, especially on subjects related to interdisciplinary knowledge. Furthermore, the steps of the EDP used in science education differ from one research to another. The most commonly used steps of the EDP are defining the problem, building, testing, evaluating, and redesigning. There are also several obstacles to the implementation of the EDP in science education. Regardless, the implementation has a positive influence on students, undergraduate students, teachers, or others. The results of this study provide an overview of how to implement the EDP in science education. Thus, it can be used as a reference for stakeholders in the field of science education when implementing EDP in their learning.
“…Moore et al's () framework for quality K‐12 engineering education mentions “learning from failure” as a component of “engineering thinking” that should be taught in K‐12 engineering contexts (p. 10). Sometimes, the fail‐forward mindset is expressed as “optimism” or “continuous improvement”—an engineering habit of mind that many failures will lead to success (Lammi, Denson, & Asunda, , p. 55; NAE & NRC, , p. 5). Finally, the NGSS indirectly addresses the idea of learning from failure as a strategy for improving one's design:3‐5‐ETS1‐3: Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of a model or prototype that can be improved (NGSS Lead States, , p. 46).However, promoting a fail‐forward mindset can be challenging.…”
Background
Design thinking, with its emphasis on iterative prototyping and mantra of “fail early and often,” stands in stark contrast to the typical one‐and‐done, failure‐averse culture of the classroom. Iterative prototyping and fail‐forward mindsets could promote valuable iterative practices and positive reactions to failure, but little research has examined their impact in K‐12 contexts.
Purpose
In two studies, we investigated the effect of a brief prototyping intervention on students' iterative knowledge, desires, and behaviors; self‐reported reactions to failure; and performance on a design challenge.
Design/Method
Study participants included 78 and 89 students in grades five and six, respectively. Students in an iterative prototyping condition (Prototype) were taught the process and fail‐forward mindset of iterative prototyping. In a comparative, content‐focused condition (Content), students focused on using science and math concepts in design.
Results
In both studies, Prototype students gained greater knowledge of iterative prototyping, reported a greater desire to iterate, and engaged in more iterative behaviors on a novel, unsupported design challenge than Content students. In Study 2, students in the Prototype condition reported more positive affect and actions in reaction to failure and produced more successful designs than their Content counterparts. However, regardless of condition, students who iterated earlier created more successful designs.
Conclusions
These studies provide an existence proof that instruction on the iterative prototyping process and mindset can encourage students to try early and often and promote healthier reactions to failure. This work also demonstrated a performance benefit to testing one's design early in the design process.
“…However, although they present great promise for developing the essential engineering skills, in many cases greater emphasis have been placed on the learning outcomes of the projects than on how students experience the processes of design (Rogers, Wendell, & Foster, ). Lammi et al () in a recent review focused on conceptualizing design challenges in pre‐college environments and discussed the need for research identifying best practices for introducing and teaching design and the kinds of considerations that should be taken for teaching engineering design at different grade levels. Additionally, there should be an essential missing component which makes the design challenge authentic to engineers, but also provides the opportunity for the novice engineer to learn and to access to deep, meaningful but often tacit knowledge of the expert engineer and to projects which they practice in their work (Fruchter & Lewis, ).…”
In this paper, we examined students’ engagement in an implementation of a Workplace Simulation Project (WSP). The WSP was designed to actively engage students in learning disciplinary content by inviting engineers from industry to have a physical presence within the school building to collaborate with teachers and students to complete projects which simulate the tasks authentic to their work. We focus on the first year implementation of the program that partnered a high school in the rural Midwest with an engineering unit of a government organization. Using a multiple methods study design, we analyzed disciplinary and interdisciplinary pre and posts test along with students’ interviews to determine learning gains as well as students’ interpretations of creative and critical thinking as experienced in the project and their knowledge of the engineering design process. Effect sizes showed that students in the WSP group had notable gains over the control group participants. Additionally, students’ knowledge of core elements of the design process were identified in inductive analyses of the interviews. Findings from this study will provide usable knowledge about effective ways to support systems and design thinking and ways to support expert‐novice collaboration to ensure success.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
