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The main purpose of this study was to explore pre-service STEM teacher perceptions, or misperceptions, about manufacturing, and to identify potential practices for how the K-12 system can better inform students, parents, teachers, and society on education and career paths in manufacturing. The research design and methodology were grounded in participatory action research to qualitatively investigate pre-service teacher perceptions of manufacturing. Data collection was done through photovoice, in which participants took pictures and wrote a narrative related to their perceptions of manufacturing, and photo-elicitation, in which participants completed a focus group session to further elicit and dig deeper into their perceptions. The preliminary findings identified four themes related to the pre-service teacher societal perceptions of manufacturing, including (1) manufacturing is a black box; (2) manufacturing has poor working conditions; (3) the media has a large influence on manufacturing perceptions; and (4) teachers and educational institutions have great potential to influence manufacturing perceptions. Recommendations for educational practice and implications for future research are provided. In particular, the study should be extended to pre-service teachers across concentrations to gain a more holistic understanding of perceptions related to all K-12 teachers entering the workforce, not just teachers with a focus on engineering/technology.

Contribution: Increased understanding of the influence of a project-based multidisciplinary design and innovation course on students’ engineering design thinking, specifically regarding problem framing. Background: Entrepreneurship-related education has been offered to engineering and technology students, but its influence has been discussed mainly in terms of students’ self-efficacy or awareness of entrepreneurship or technological innovation, relying mostly on their self-reported data. Research Questions: 1) How do undergraduate students perceive the relationship between entrepreneurial mindsets and engineering design thinking after a project-based design course that integrates entrepreneurial activities and 2) How differently do they frame a design situation after this course? Methodology: This qualitative case study involved 14 undergraduate students pursuing a minor in design and innovation at a polytechnic institute. For more systematic data collection and analysis, a conceptual framework was developed based on literature about cognitive operations for problem framing and entrepreneurial engineering mindsets. Primary data were collected through semi-structured interviews and pre- and post-activities focused on problem framing. The interview and activity data were analyzed through multiple qualitative analysis approaches based on the conceptual framework. Findings: The analysis of the interview responses reveals the participants’ thoughts on the role of an entrepreneurial mindset in engineering design practice, and the comparison between their pre- and post-problem framing activities shows that they tended to focus more on Customer and Social problem elements and less on Technical and Business problem elements after the course. However, important questions remain to better understand the impact of this change on their design abilities.

Efforts to revamp existing educational systems and approaches result in various new models in STEM education. Accordingly, a new urban public charter school, located in a Midwest state in the United States, was established in partnership with the state’s land-grant university to create a transformed integrated STEM educational environment characterized by industry-focused and design-based learning to help prepare students for the future of work and learning. This article presents findings from an exploratory study that examined the experiences of teachers and administrative staff of this innovative high school (IHS) during the first year of school operation. A purposive sample of 16 teachers and administrators from the IHS completed a semi-structured interview and a focus group. Several themes—related to the experiences during the first year of the school—from the interviews with the participants emerged including: (1) developing novel approaches for planning and implementing design-based learning cycles, (2) facing challenges with personalized learning, (3) establishing methods for creating authentic and industry-driven learning experiences, (4) addressing challenges with open-ended learning, (5) confronting concerns about competencies that are not measured through standardized assessments, (6) struggling with teacher burnout, and (7) challenging traditional school systems and facilities with integrated learning environments. Based on these findings, potential implications, considerations, and future directions for the implementation of innovative industry- driven, design-based educational approaches are provided. Note. To preserve anonymity the name of the high school has been generalized and the acronym IHS will be used throughout

Research on children’s experiences with designing has emphasized cognitive processes, self-efficacy, and outcomes related to designing. However, efforts have been limited towards identifying approaches children use while designing and making decisions related to design. This study, which incorporated a qualitative analysis of children’s design portfolios, explored students’ decisions in planning and evaluating designs related to children’s nursery rhymes. Differences in design approaches, based on teacher, task, and stage of designing, were identified in the analysis. Understanding how children approach and attempt to solve open-ended design problems may assist in improving student design experiences and pedagogical practices in all levels of education.

Adaptive comparative judgment (ACJ) has proven to be a valid, reliable, and feasible method for assessing student performance in open-ended design scenarios. In addition to the use of ACJ for purely assessment and evaluation, research has demonstrated an opportunity to identify the design values of judges involved with the ACJ process. The potential for ACJ, as a tool for understanding cultural design values, and potentially facilitating international collaboration, is intriguing. Therefore, this study established three panels of judges, from countries around the world, to assess one body of student work using the ACJ method. The similarities, differences, and findings from these assessment results were analyzed, revealing distinct design values, preferences, and differences for each group of judges from the different locations.

Few direct dual credit options exist for high schools working with major universities. Purdue University piloted a program, ACCESSS Purdue, in the fall of 2020 using a facilitator model approach with five high school teachers. This model provided students an opportunity to earn directly transcripted college credits for a course that is a pre-requisite for all Polytechnic majors and is one of three courses necessary for a minor in design thinking. The facilitator model addresses many of the suggested changes to current dual credit models, including: ensuring credit transfer and articulation, affordability, accessibility, collaboration with the high school and college, and student supports. By addressing these barriers, successful incorporation of this model is likely to influence an increased enrollment and success of all students, including advancing equity for low-income and minority students.

Design within primary and secondary schools has been increasingly emphasized over the past decade. As a response to this increased interest, qualitative research examining students’ cognitive processes involved in the practices of design has been on the rise. These studies have commonly employed the concurrent think-aloud research methodology to examine and describe an individual’s or group’s thought processes while engaged in a design task. However, the variety of coding schemes used to code and describe the collected think-aloud data has limited the synthesis of findings across design cognition studies, which can be a concern as the synthesis of qualitative studies can potentially lead to the development of more formal and possibly more generalizable theories (Glaser and Strauss in Status passage, Aldine, Chicago, 1971). Nevertheless, a study conducted by Grubbs, Strimel, and Kim (2018) examined the different coding schemes used in analyzing the design cognition of primary and secondary students that were published between 1995 and 2016. Their investigation led to the identification of three distinct themes for the foundation and intent of the various design cognition coding schemes and provided a basis for a more informed meta-synthesis of design cognition research. Therefore, this study examined the design cognition studies identified by Grubbs et al. (2018) and synthesized both the findings and discussions of each, according to the three coding scheme themes. The results of this investigation can provide deeper insights into primary and secondary students’ design thinking and can help inform design pedagogy.

Improving graphics education may begin with understanding best practices for providing, receiving, and improving formative feedback. Challenges related to anonymity, efficiency, and validity in pee...

Engineering education has increasingly become an area of interest at the P-12 level, yet attempts to align engineering knowledge, skills, and habits to existing elementary and secondary educational programming have been parochial in nature (e.g., for a specific context, grade, or initiative). Consequently, a need exists to establish a coherent P-12 content framework for engineering teaching and learning, which would serve as both an epistemological foundation for the subject and a guide for the design of developmentally appropriate educational standards, performance expectations, learning progressions, and assessments. A comprehensive framework for P-12 engineering education would include a compelling rationale and vision for the inclusion of engineering as a compulsory subject, content organization for the dimensions of engineering literacy, and a plan for the realization of this vision. The absence of such a framework could yield inconsistency in authentically educating students in engineering. In response, this study was conducted to establish a taxonomy of concepts related to both engineering knowledge and practices to support the development of a P-12 curricular framework. A modified Delphi method and a series of focus groups—which included teachers, professors, industry professionals, and other relevant stakeholders—were used to reach a consensus on engineering concepts deemed appropriate for secondary study. As a result, a content taxonomy for knowledge and practices appropriate for P-12 engineering emerged through multiple rounds of refinement. This article details the efforts to develop this taxonomy, and discusses how it can be used for standards creation, curriculum development, assessment of learning, and teacher preparation.

This study examined the design cognition and achievement results of both kindergarten and fourth grade students engaged in engineering design-based instructional activities. Relationships between design cognition and student grade level, as well as quality of student work, were investigated. 30 concurrent think-aloud protocols were collected from individual primary students as they worked in groups to design and make a solution to a design task. The concurrent think-aloud protocols were examined and coded to determine the duration of time the participants devoted to a pre-established set of mental processes for technological problem solving. Significant differences between kindergarten and fourth grade participants were found in the amount of time various cognitive processes were employed. Fourth grade students dedicated significantly more time to the mental processes of Creating, Defining Problems, Measuring, and Testing than kindergarten students. In addition, when examining the think-aloud protocols along with the evaluations of the participant’s design work, it was found that more time devoted to the cognitive process of Managing could be a significant predictor of lower design achievement. These findings can highlight potential areas for improving educational practice based on the cognitive abilities of students at different grade levels and the quality of their design work. As engineering design-based activities become more prevalent for the teaching of STEM-related content and practices, the results of this research, and the employed methodology, may demonstrate a promising practice for better understanding and assessing such education efforts.

This article examines content validity in teacher made tests in elementary technology education—an interdisciplinary subject mandatory for all pupils in compulsory school in Sweden. The context of ...

While design-based pedagogies have increasingly been emphasized, the assessment of design projects remains difficult due to the large number of potentially “correct” solutions. Adaptive comparative judgment (ACJ), an approach based on assessors/judges working through a series of paired comparisons and selecting the better of two items, has demonstrated high levels of inter-rater reliability with design projects. Efforts towards using ACJ for assessing design have largely centered on summative assessment. However, evidence suggests that ACJ may be a powerful tool for formative assessment and design learning when undertaken by students. Therefore, this study investigated middle school students participated in ACJ at the midpoint and conclusion of a design project, both receiving and providing feedback to/from their peers through the ACJ process. Findings demonstrated promise for using ACJ, as a formative assessment and feedback tool, to improve student learning and achievement.

Open-ended design problems have become an important component in our educational landscape (Grubbs and Strimel in J STEM Teach Educ 50(1):77–90, 2015; Jonassen et al. in J Eng Educ 95:139–151, 2006; National Research Council in Education for life and work: developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st Century, National Academies Press, Washington, 2012; Strimel in Technol Eng Teach 73(7):8–18, 2014a). The ability of students to confront open-ended problem scenarios, think creatively, and produce novel designs have all been lauded as necessary skills for today’s twenty first century learners (Partnership for 21st Century Skills in P21 framework definitions, Author, Washington, 2016). This emphasis on open-ended design problems in problem-based learning scenarios has been tied to workforce and higher education preparation for students (National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council in STEM integration in K–12 education: status, prospects, and an agenda for research, National Academies Press, Washington, 2014; National Research Council in Engineering in K–12 education: understanding the status and improving the prospects, National Academies Press, Washington, 2009; Strimel in Technol Eng Teach 73(5):16–24, 2014b). However, little research has been conducted to identify the impact of potentially-influential factors on student success in such open-ended design scenarios. Therefore, the researchers examined data from 706 middle school students, working in small groups, as they completed an open-ended design challenge to determine the relationships between a variety of potentially-influential factors and student performance, as measured through adaptive comparative judgment. The analysis of the data revealed several relationships, significant and not significant, between identified variables and student success on open-ended design challenges.

Recently there has been overwhelming political and financial support to include computer science (CS) in K-12 school curricula across the United States. With such strong support for CS it has been questioned where the subject would be best situated in already crowded K-12 curricula. Some have proposed integrating it within secondary level technology and engineering (T&E) courses (Ernst & Clark, 2007, 2009; Wright, Rich, & Leatham, 2012) or using CS courses in place of T&E education classes (Maryland State Department of Education [MSDE], 2016). To better inform decisions regarding CS in T&E education, this study used a multiple comparative case study (Yin, 2014) to analyze the alignment of subconcepts from the K-12 CS Framework with benchmarks from the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association’s (ITEEA) Standards for Technological Literacy (STL). Additionally, a content analysis was conducted to examine curricular resources that claimed to teach CS concepts while addressing components of the STL’s designed world. The purpose of the study was to investigate similarities and differences among both the CS and T&E standards and to identify curricular resources that successfully addressed multiple STL while integrating CS concepts. The findings revealed that there was limited alignment between the computational thinking and programming-focused CS framework and the broader engineering design and technology systems-focused STL. However, some curricular resources successfully used CS concepts to address many standards from the designed world section of the STL. From these findings, implications and recommendations for integrating CS within T&E education were provided.

The teaching of engineering in US schools has seen a surge in popularity since the turn of the twenty-first century, and as design is considered a defining characteristic of engineers, the practice of engineering design has become a critical component of technology education. Consequently, research related to design cognition in engineering/technology education has become more prevalent in the literature. However, there are often minimal discussions on bridging design research with practice. Therefore, this chapter will present a design cognition research methodology developed to help inform engineering/technology education practice, the results of a study employing this method, and the implications for teaching and learning.