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Design and Implementation of Data Collection in a Large-Scale, Multi-Year Pre-College Engineering Study: A Retrospective

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Conference

2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Tampa, Florida

Publication Date

June 15, 2019

Start Date

June 15, 2019

End Date

June 19, 2019

Conference Session

Best Practices in Research & Assessment Tools for Pre-College Engineering Education

Tagged Division

Pre-College Engineering Education

Page Count

23

DOI

10.18260/1-2--32596

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/32596

Download Count

808

Paper Authors

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Ibrahim H. Yeter Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-0175-2306

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Ibrahim H. Yeter is a Postdoctoral Researcher in his second year in the INSPIRE-Research Institute for Pre-College Engineering in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. He completed his PhD degree majoring in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Engineering Education and minoring in Educational Psychology as well as an MS degree in Petroleum Engineering at Texas Tech University. He also obtained an MEd degree from Clemson University. His research interests focus on teacher education and students learning issues within Engineering Education/Pedagogy and Computational Thinking/Pedagogy field of studies. He received national and international recognitions including an Early Career Researcher award from European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) and a Jhumki Basu Scholar award from National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST). In addition, he is one of two scholarship recipients awarded by NARST to attend the ESERA summer research program in České Budějovice, Czech Republic in 2016. He can be reached at iyeter@purdue.edu.

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Anastasia Marie Rynearson Campbell University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-2712-8712

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Anastasia Rynearson is an Assistant Professor at Campbell University. She received a PhD from Purdue University in Engineering Education and a B.S. and M.Eng. in Mechanical Engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Her teaching experience includes outreach activities at various age levels as well as a position as Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Kanazawa Technical College and Future Faculty Fellow teaching First-Year Engineering at Purdue University. She focused on integrated STEM curriculum development as part of an NSF STEM+C grant as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant through INSPIRE in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University Her current research interests focus on early P-12 engineering education and identity development.

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Hoda Ehsan Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-3681-317X

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Hoda is a Ph.D. student in the School of Engineering Education, Purdue. She received her B.S. in mechanical engineering in Iran, and obtained her M.S. in Childhood Education and New York teaching certification from City College of New York (CUNY-CCNY). She is now a graduate research assistant on STEM+C project. Her research interests include designing informal setting for engineering learning, and promoting engineering thinking in differently abled students in informal and formal settings.

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Abeera P. Rehmat Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-4977-5830

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Annwesa Dasgupta Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis

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Dr. Annwesa Dasgupta is a postdoctoral researcher with the STEM Education Innovation and Research Institute. Her primary role at SEIRI is to facilitate the SEIRI seed grant program (SSG) that serves as a grant competition for innovative pedagogical implementations by STEM faculty at IUPUI. Her research interests include biology education as well as integrated STEM research. In addition to overseeing the SSG program, she closely works with faculty on research-based implementation of CUREs (course based undergraduate research) as a model in the biology department. Dasgupta received her PhD in biology education research from Purdue University. Her dissertation was centered on the design of assessments that explore student difficulties in thinking about biology experiments. Previously, Dr. Dasgupta was a postdoctoral researchers at the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University where she worked on the STEM+C project, focused on enhancing STEM engagement and computational thinking (STEM+C) for K-2 grade students by developing connections across formal and informal learning environments.

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Barbara Fagundes Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Barbara Fagundes is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Engineering Education Department at Purdue University. Her doctoral research interests involve representation of women in the STEM field, k-12 engineering education, and computational thinking.

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Muhsin Menekse Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Muhsin Menekse is an assistant professor at Purdue University with a joint appointment in the School of Engineering Education and the Department of Curriculum & Instruction. Dr. Menekse’s primary research focus is on students' learning of complex tasks and concepts in STEM domains. Specifically, he investigates how classroom activities and learning environments affect engagement and learning in engineering and science domains. His second research focus in on exploring verbal interactions in small groups and student teams. And his third research focus is on metacognition and its implications for learning. Much of this research focuses on learning processes in classroom settings. Dr. Menekse is the recipient of the 2014 William Elgin Wickenden Award by the American Society for Engineering Education. His research has been generously funded by grants from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), Purdue Research Foundation (PRF), and National Science Foundation (NSF).

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Monica E. Cardella Purdue University, West Lafayette Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-4229-6183

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Monica E. Cardella is a Program Director with the Division of Research on Learning at the National Science Foundation. She is also a Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University.

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Abstract

The data collection procedure and process is one of the most critical components in a research study that affects the findings. Problems in data collection may directly influence the findings, and consequently, may lead to questionable inferences. Despite the challenges in data collection, this study provides insights for STEM education researchers and practitioners on effective data collection, in order to ensure that the data is useful for answering questions posed by research. Our engineering education research study was a part of a three-year, NSF funded project implemented in the Midwest region of the US. The project has engaged more than 60 teachers from 15 different public elementary schools and one private elementary school from five different school districts, as well as homeschool educators. More than 1,000 students, ages kindergarten to second grade, have been involved. Through this project, children engaged in integrated STEM + literacy +computational thinking activities in formal, informal, and homeschool settings. For this multi-faceted project, data collection was complex. The primary data collected for this project was video-recordings of K-2nd grade-aged children as they engaged in curriculum activities in both classroom and homeschool settings, as well as in activities designed for and set in a science center setting. Video recordings allow us to examine the ways that the children engage in engineering design and computational thinking, as well as in mathematics, science, and literacy. Video recordings also allow us to examine the interactions between children, as well as interactions between children and teachers/parents. Additional data included: copies of student work (e.g. worksheets, engineering design prototypes); field notes collected during classroom observation and science center visits; post-implementation interviews with teachers and parents; and surveys. In addition, a new approach, referred to as the 1+2 technique, in video data collection was developed to record the targeted data. Overall, the main aim of this paper is to provide critical insights for researchers who anticipate implementing more successful, purposeful and effective data collection in elementary schools, specifically in K-2 grade levels. We also anticipate that this paper will help practitioners and professional developers consider how they might collect video recordings: whether for allowing practitioners to reflect on their teaching practices; allowing teachers to share with families the in-class activities that children engage in; or assisting professional developers in developing video-based training materials.

Yeter, I. H., & Rynearson, A. M., & Ehsan, H., & Rehmat, A. P., & Dasgupta, A., & Fagundes, B., & Menekse, M., & Cardella, M. E. (2019, June), Design and Implementation of Data Collection in a Large-Scale, Multi-Year Pre-College Engineering Study: A Retrospective Paper presented at 2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Tampa, Florida. 10.18260/1-2--32596

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