Impact of Elementary School Teachers' Enacted Engineering Design-Based Science Instruction on Student Learning (Fundamental)

Brenda Capobianco; James D. Lehman; Qiming Huang; Chell Nyquist

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Conference: 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Publication Date: June 26, 2016
Start Date: June 26, 2016
End Date: June 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-692-68565-5
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: K-12 & Pre-College Engineering Division: Fundamental: K-12 Student Beliefs, Motivation, and Self Efficacy
Tagged Division: Pre-College Engineering Education Division
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 18
DOI: 10.18260/p.25540
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/25540
Download Count: 769

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Paper Authors

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Brenda Capobianco Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Brenda M. Capobianco is Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and School of Engineering Education (courtesy) at Purdue University. She holds a B.S. in biology from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, M.S. in science education from Connecticut Central State University, and Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She teaches elementary science methods and graduate courses in teacher action research and gender and culture in science education. Her research interests include girls’ participation in science and engineering; teacher’s engagement in action research; and science teachers’ integration of the engineering design process to improve science learning.

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James D. Lehman Purdue University

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Dr. James D. Lehman is a Professor of Learning Design and Technology in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Director of the Discovery Learning Research Center at Purdue University. He is member of the leadership teams of two current NSF-funded projects, Science Learning through Engineering Design (SLED) and Professional Development for Computer Science (PD4CS). He holds a B.S. and M.S. in biology and a Ph.D. in science education, all from Purdue University. His research interests include integration of computers in education, particularly in STEM disciplines; e-learning; and interactive multimedia.

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Qiming Huang Purdue University

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Qiming Huang is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Statistics at Purdue University. He holds a B.S. in Mathematics from the Beijing Institute of Technology, M.S. in Statistics from Purdue University. His research interests include variable selection, dimension reduction, kernel methods, computational advertising and statistical application in psychometrics.

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Chell Nyquist Purdue University

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Chell Nyquist is the project manager for the Science Learning through Engineering Design (SLED) Partnership which focuses on improving science achievement among students in grades 3 through 6 in four partnering Indiana school corporations. Prior to joining the project, he was the Instructional Laboratory Coordinator for the First-Year Engineering Program at Purdue University. He was responsible for the coordination and administration of two introductory engineering courses involving 1800 students. Nyquist earned his MS in engineering from Purdue University and received BS degrees in Physiology and Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Abstract

Engineering design is viewed as a vehicle through which scientific knowledge and real-world problem-solving skills can be constructed, refined, and enhanced. With the adoption of new national science standards in the U.S., teachers, specifically elementary school teachers, are faced with the daunting task of learning how to integrate engineering design and more importantly, facilitate student learning of science through design. The purpose of this study was to examine elementary school teachers’ enactments of engineering design-based science instruction and to assess the impact of their instruction on students’ science learning. This study is grounded in the theoretical construct of situated learning theory where learners (teachers and students) become part of a community of practice in which they learn from others (university STEM faculty) through an apprenticeship approach and advance from simple to more complex tasks until becoming full-fledged participants of the community. The context of this study is a large, multi-year university school partnership that includes the participation of over 200 elementary/intermediate school teachers, 3,000 students, 25 STEM faculty and educational researchers. For the purpose of this study, a sub-sample of ten individual cases (5 grade five teachers and 165 students and 5 grade six teachers and 157 students) were purposefully selected from the larger population. These cases represented individual classroom teachers and their students who provided consent, completed all research-related activities, and implemented a series of similar engineering design-based science tasks over the course of one year. Data sources included two semi-structured interviews/teacher (n=20 total) and formal classroom observations of teachers’ enactments of two tasks from beginning to end (n=200 hours). Interviews were analyzed using grounded theory. Classroom observations were analyzed using the Engineering Design-Based Classroom Observational Rubric – an observation tool developed, validated, and published by the research team. Students’ development of scientific knowledge was assessed by identical pre- and post-instruction tests. The tests were composed of multiple-choice items that probed for different levels of comprehension using low, medium, and high cognitive demand. The tests focused on the specific science and engineering content that was addressed in each unit design task. Tests were analyzed for item validity, and an overall Cronbach alpha reliability was calculated based on the post-test administration of the test. Simple descriptive statistics were calculated, and paired samples t-tests were used to assess students’ pre-test to post-test learning gains. Test results indicated that the mean score for each assessment increased significantly from pre-test to post-test across multiple design tasks. To assess whether there was a relationship between the fidelity of teachers’ implementation of the design-based lessons and student performance on the knowledge tests, Pearson product moment correlations were calculated between teachers’ mean observational rubric scores and students’ scores on the corresponding post-test. Results indicated that the teachers gave priority to design phases such as problem scoping and planning and less time to solution performance, communication, and documentation of performance results, and optimization. Teachers’ enactment of design-based pedagogies aligned with instructional models presented at professional development summer institutes while students’ test score performance correlated significantly with teachers’ enactment. Weak enactment of engineering design-based science instruction and design tasks that did not merit a strong science application correlated with lower mean and gain scores. Implications of this study support the integration of engineering design-based science instruction in elementary school science and provide fertile ground for research on how students apply and transfer their science learning across subsequent units and real world contexts.

Citation
Format

Capobianco, B., & Lehman, J. D., & Huang, Q., & Nyquist, C. (2016, June), Impact of Elementary School Teachers' Enacted Engineering Design-Based Science Instruction on Student Learning (Fundamental) Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.25540

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Engineering design is viewed as a vehicle through which scientific knowledge and real-world problem-solving skills can be constructed, refined, and enhanced. With the adoption of new national science standards in the U.S., teachers, specifically elementary school teachers, are faced with the daunting task of learning how to integrate engineering design and more importantly, facilitate student learning of science through design. The purpose of this study was to examine elementary school teachers’ enactments of engineering design-based science instruction and to assess the impact of their instruction on students’ science learning. This study is grounded in the theoretical construct of situated learning theory where learners (teachers and students) become part of a community of practice in which they learn from others (university STEM faculty) through an apprenticeship approach and advance from simple to more complex tasks until becoming full-fledged participants of the community. The context of this study is a large, multi-year university school partnership that includes the participation of over 200 elementary/intermediate school teachers, 3,000 students, 25 STEM faculty and educational researchers. For the purpose of this study, a sub-sample of ten individual cases (5 grade five teachers and 165 students and 5 grade six teachers and 157 students) were purposefully selected from the larger population. These cases represented individual classroom teachers and their students who provided consent, completed all research-related activities, and implemented a series of similar engineering design-based science tasks over the course of one year. Data sources included two semi-structured interviews/teacher (n=20 total) and formal classroom observations of teachers’ enactments of two tasks from beginning to end (n=200 hours). Interviews were analyzed using grounded theory. Classroom observations were analyzed using the Engineering Design-Based Classroom Observational Rubric – an observation tool developed, validated, and published by the research team. Students’ development of scientific knowledge was assessed by identical pre- and post-instruction tests. The tests were composed of multiple-choice items that probed for different levels of comprehension using low, medium, and high cognitive demand. The tests focused on the specific science and engineering content that was addressed in each unit design task. Tests were analyzed for item validity, and an overall Cronbach alpha reliability was calculated based on the post-test administration of the test.  Simple descriptive statistics were calculated, and paired samples t-tests were used to assess students’ pre-test to post-test learning gains. Test results indicated that the mean score for each assessment increased significantly from pre-test to post-test across multiple design tasks. To assess whether there was a relationship between the fidelity of teachers’ implementation of the design-based lessons and student performance on the knowledge tests, Pearson product moment correlations were calculated between teachers’ mean observational rubric scores and students’ scores on the corresponding post-test. Results indicated that the teachers gave priority to design phases such as problem scoping and planning and less time to solution performance, communication, and documentation of performance results, and optimization. Teachers’ enactment of design-based pedagogies aligned with instructional models presented at professional development summer institutes while students’ test score performance correlated significantly with teachers’ enactment. Weak enactment of engineering design-based science instruction and design tasks that did not merit a strong science application correlated with lower mean and gain scores. Implications of this study support the integration of engineering design-based science instruction in elementary school science and provide fertile ground for research on how students apply and transfer their science learning across subsequent units and real world contexts.  
AU  - Brenda Capobianco
AU  - James D. Lehman
AU  - Qiming Huang
AU  - Chell Nyquist
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Impact of Elementary School Teachers' Enacted Engineering Design-Based Science Instruction on Student Learning (Fundamental)
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/25540
DO  - 10.18260/p.25540
ER  -