Argument-driven Engineering in Middle School Science Classrooms: The Study of Engineering Attitudes and Efforts to Broaden Engineering Participation by Exposing All Students to Multiple Engineering Design Tasks (RTP, Diversity)
- Conference
- Location
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Salt Lake City, Utah
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2018
- Start Date
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June 23, 2018
- End Date
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July 27, 2018
- Conference Session
- Tagged Division
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Pre-College Engineering Education
- Tagged Topic
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Diversity
- Page Count
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23
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--29815
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/29815
- Download Count
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649
Paper Authors
Lawrence Chu University of Texas at Austin
Lawrence Chu is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin studying STEM Education. His research interests include engineering integration in secondary science classes, science assessment development, and educational program evaluation.
Victor Sampson University of Texas at Austin
Associate Professor of STEM Education
Director of the Center for STEM Education
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Todd L. Hutner University of Texas at Austin
Stephanie Rivale University of Texas at Austin
Stephanie Rivale is a research faculty member at the Center for STEM Education at the University of Texas. She received her Ph.D. in STEM Education at the University of Texas. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Rochester and her M.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Colorado. She has collaborated on engineering education research with both the VaNTH Engineering Research Center, UTeachEngineering, and the TEAMS Program at the University of Boulder. Dr. Rivale’s research uses recent advances in our understanding of how people learn to evaluate and improve student learning in college and K-12 engineering classrooms. Her work also focuses on improving access and equity for women and students of color in STEM fields.
Richard H. Crawford University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Richard H. Crawford is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and is the Temple Foundation Endowed Faculty Fellow No. 3. He is also Director of the Design Projects program in Mechanical Engineering. He received his BSME from Louisiana State University in 1982, and his MSME in 1985 and Ph.D. in 1989, both from Purdue University. He teaches mechanical engineering design and geometry modeling for design. Dr. Crawford’s research interests span topics in computer-aided mechanical design and design theory and methodology. Dr. Crawford is co-founder of the DTEACh program, a ”Design Technology” program for K-12, and is active on the faculty of the UTeachEngineering program that seeks to educate teachers of high school engineering.
Christina L. Baze
University of Texas at Austin
orcid.org/0000-0002-0418-1772
Christina is a doctoral student in the STEM Education program at the University of Texas at Austin. After earning a B.S.Ed. in Secondary Education – Biology through the NAUTeach program at Northern Arizona University, she taught in several capacities in K-12 schools. Christina then began teaching community college students part-time. Through this position, she was encouraged to earn her Master of Arts in Science Teaching, also at Northern Arizona University. During this time, Christina discovered a love for research, prompting her to pursue a Ph.D. She is a recipient of both a Graduate School Recruitment Fellowship and a Texas New Scholar’s Fellowship. She is a member of the National Science Teachers Association, and currently serves as the STEM Education representative to the Graduate Student Assembly at UT.
Hannah Smith Brooks University of Texas at Austin
Hannah Brooks is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on promoting equitable access through collaboration and instructional design. She is also interested in improving teacher education programs in the sciences by studying how teachers plan and structure learning using various methods. She has a BA in Biology and a M.Ed. in middle and secondary instruction from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Her interests developed during her time in the science classroom, having worked in both comprehensive and early college high schools. Leadership experiences at the school and county levels challenged her to study how teachers and students interact during learning. She has presented at various national and regional conferences, with work appearing in The Science Teacher and on TeachEngineering.com, and has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant.
Abstract
The goal of this study was to examine how the use of a newly developed instructional model is related to changes in middle school students’ attitudes toward engineering and participation in engineering careers. Although the literature shows that much has already been implemented in the way of promoting equity in engineering and science, this study uniquely takes place in the context of a science classroom where middle school students propose, support, critique, and revise engineering design solutions, and it helps to elucidates how their attitudes toward engineering change as familiarity with the design process grows. Four prototype engineering design tasks were developed using the argument driven engineering (ADE) framework by the research team to allow students to engage in engineering design by incorporating disciplinary core ideas and math principles, use evidence-based arguments to develop and critique design solutions, and participate in collaborative and individual learning through writing and discourse. The ADE framework was implemented in two middle schools in a southern state of the U.S. with two teachers and a total of over 100 students. Surveys were administered at three time points, scoring students on three attitudinal factors: Engineering Self-Identity, Engineering Interest, and perceptions of Engineers’ Benefit to Society. Student engineering interest and perception of engineers’ benefit to society were both found to decrease on average from one survey to the next, while scores on engineering self-identity stayed the same on average. Additionally, not knowing an engineer was shown to be associated with a disadvantage in the factors of both interest in engineering and perceptions of engineers’ benefit to society. The limitations of the study include a small number of time points, a lack of a control group, minimal collection of open-ended data, and software limitations.
Chu, L., & Sampson, V., & Hutner, T. L., & Rivale, S., & Crawford, R. H., & Baze, C. L., & Brooks, H. S. (2018, June), Argument-driven Engineering in Middle School Science Classrooms: The Study of Engineering Attitudes and Efforts to Broaden Engineering Participation by Exposing All Students to Multiple Engineering Design Tasks (RTP, Diversity) Paper presented at 2018 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--29815
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