Lachney, M., & Nieusma, D. (2015, June), Engineering Bait-and-Switch:  K-12 Recruitment Strategies Meet University Curricula and Culture   Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23954

\bibitem{asee_peer_23954}
  Lachney, M., \& Nieusma, D. (2015, June), \emph{Engineering Bait-and-Switch:  K-12 Recruitment Strategies Meet University Curricula and Culture }
  Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington.
  10.18260/p.23954

Michael Lachney and Dean Nieusma.  "Engineering Bait-and-Switch:  K-12 Recruitment Strategies Meet University Curricula and Culture ".  2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2015.  https://peer.asee.org/23954 Internet.  10 Mar, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_23954}
  Michael Lachney and Dean Nieusma.
  "Engineering Bait-and-Switch:  K-12 Recruitment Strategies Meet University Curricula and Culture ".
  \emph{2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2015.
  https://peer.asee.org/23954 Internet.  10 Mar, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_23954
author = "Michael Lachney and Dean Nieusma"
title = "Engineering Bait-and-Switch:  K-12 Recruitment Strategies Meet University Curricula and Culture "
booktitle = "2015 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2015"
month = "June"
address = "Seattle, Washington"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/23954}
number = {10.18260/p.23954}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -                          Engineering Bait-and-Switch:        K-12 Recruitment Strategies Meet University Curricula and CultureWhile traditional science and math subjects are highly standardized in state K-12curricula and the testing regimes associated with No Child Left Behind and Race to theTop, K-12 engineering education is less integrated into the standards of the US educationsystem. Businesspersons, government supported university researchers, teachers,policymakers, and others take advantage of this flexibility by coupling engineeringeducation with design activities: robotics competitions, maker fairs, and project-basedcurriculum such as Engineering is Elementary. This is a radical innovation to traditionalK-12 STEM education practices. Instead of teaching to the test, engineering educationteaches for hands-on design. The motivation behind these practices is recruitment: attractmore students to engineering with hands-on design activities at the K-12 level so thatthey then pursue it in higher education.Unlike in K-12, engineering in higher education has remained largely unchanged fordecades. The “fundamentals first” structure of the majority of university engineeringprograms assumes a long sequence of analytical skill sets must be mastered beforestudents engage in design, material manipulation, and “real world” problem solving.These analytic skill sets are established less through creative contextual trial-and-errorand more through rote, decontextualized problem solving, first in math and basicsciences, then in engineering sciences. In the engineering design capstone, students arefinally required to creatively synthesize solutions to real-world-like problems.Limitations to the fundamentals-first paradigm increasingly have been recognized withinuniversity engineering education. Numerous engineering programs now tweak itsstructure by offering first or second-year design courses—and many schools offerextracurricular design-oriented programming—yet the overall format of most engineeringprograms remains predominantly unchanged.Hence, the dominant image of K-12 engineering education is far different than theexperiences of most engineering undergraduates. The transition from K-12 engineering touniversity engineering can be harsh for many first-year students. We characterize thistransition as “bait and switch.” Bait-and-switch is often associated with fraud or trickeryin retail and lawmaking. Something is proposed one way that appears attractive (bait), butis less attractive upon reveal (switch). Hands-on design activities in K-12 education arean attractive and creative image of engineering (bait) that is radically different from thefundamentals-first, rote problem solving of engineering education in most colleges anduniversities (switch).This paper will characterize the policy and theoretical struggles that make bait-and-switch a dominant recruitment phenomenon in the US engineering educational landscape.In this context, engineering education at all levels is tightly coupled with discourses onnational and economic security. Anxieties over the future workforce filter intoinstitutional goals, which can begin as early as primary school, to increase recruitmentrates for higher education engineering programs. This frames engineering education as asite of struggle over the prioritization of recruitment as opposed to retention. Successwith recruitment at the K-12 level works to magnify retention problems at the universitylevel as incoming undergraduate students confront the “switch.” To begin, bait-and-switch is characterized by examples from K-12 and higher education. Next, bait-and-switch is posed as a site of struggle over the prioritization of retention or recruitment.Finally, this struggle of bait-and-switch is re-characterized through examples ofengineering programs that integrate liberal arts and design based learning.
AU  - Michael Lachney
AU  - Dean Nieusma
CY  - Seattle, Washington
DA  - 2015/06/14
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Engineering Bait-and-Switch:  K-12 Recruitment Strategies Meet University Curricula and Culture 
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/23954
DO  - 10.18260/p.23954
ER  -