Research on Engineering Education at K-12 Settings across Communities of Practice: A Systematic Literature Review (2009-2018)

Ethan Geheb; Asli Sezen-Barrie; Karissa Tilbury

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Conference: 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Minneapolis, MN
Publication Date: August 23, 2022
Start Date: June 26, 2022
End Date: June 29, 2022
Conference Session: ERM: Systematic Reviews!
Page Count: 18
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--41112
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/41112
Download Count: 244

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Ethan Geheb University of Maine

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Ethan Geheb is a doctoral candidate in the STEM Education program at the University of Maine, with a concentration in engineering education. His research focuses on exploring departmental culture/norms and their relation to undergraduate engineering identity development. Ethan began the doctoral program after earning his Master of Science in Teaching degree through the Maine Center for Research in STEM Education (RiSE Center). Ethan also graduated with a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Maine. In addition to research, Ethan teaches a course on instructional methods for secondary science classrooms for pre-service teachers, drawing upon his experience teaching science in traditional and non-traditional environments.

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Asli Sezen-Barrie University of Maine

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Karissa Tilbury

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Abstract

This research aims to provide a systematic review of K-12 engineering education publications between 2009 and 2018 across education research fields. We compared engineering publications produced by two types of journals, engineering education journals (EEJ) and other science/math-related educational research journals (OEJ). The reasoning behind this classification comes from our theoretical stance and initial review of authorship, which shows two distinct, yet intersecting communities of practice (CoP, Wenger, 1999) studying engineering education. The EEJ articles, compared to OEJ articles, were produced by researchers with stronger engineering experience, shared conferences as learning spaces, and typically from engineering education departments. The data collection started with sorting the top quartile of education journals (n=258) according to impact factor and filtering them by title association with K-12 education, S-T-E-M education, student learning, or teacher learning. Then, journal databases were searched using the keyword “engineer” within 2009-2018. The final article inclusion criteria were empirical studies on K-12 populations. A collection of 147 articles from across 21 journals were coded for topics, target populations, and methods, using qualitative constant comparative analysis method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and frequency analysis (Creswell & Clark, 2017). Of the 147 articles, 72 originated from EEJs such as the Journal of Engineering Education, whereas the 75 articles were spread across 19 other educational research journals, for instance, Science Education. The key findings show that the publication rate of studies between 2014-2018 was doubled compared to the numbers during 2009-2013 for EEJ and OEJ communities. This change might relate to the publication of Next Generation Science Standards (2013) as the first standards highlighting engineering integration to science classrooms. Between 2009-2013, there are distinctions among EEJ and OEJ articles in research design. EEJs produced more quantitative studies than OEJs (28%, 21%, respectively), whereas qualitative studies were produced at a higher rate by OEJs (21%) compared to EEJs (14%). During 2014-2018, both communities produced the same amount of qualitative studies (36%, 36%). However, OEJs significantly increased quantitative studies (4%?17%) compared to EEJs (13%?15%). Across the 10 years, the most frequent topics for both journals were student content knowledge (10%, 8.6%, respectively) and the impact of the engineering design process on student learning (8.0%, 8.2%). On the other hand, EEJs publications were more focused on the application of science and engineering practices (13.1%), whereas OEJs publications were more focused on teacher professional development of engineering topics (8.8%). Unlike previous systematic reviews focusing on narrow subtopics (e.g., Morelock, 2017), this study aims to review the engineering education field at large across a 10-year timespan. We have contributed to the field by investigating the evolution of research topics and methods in engineering education. This study will interest pre-college engineering educators looking to understand what gaps exist in engineering education studies. The CoP perspective offers a unique contribution to exploring how researchers within engineering education-specific communities can improve their collaborations with other disciplines to develop an ambitious interdisciplinary agenda for K-12 engineering education.

Keywords (3-5): Systematic Literature Review, K-12 engineering education, Community of Practice (CoP)

Citation
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Geheb, E., & Sezen-Barrie, A., & Tilbury, K. (2022, August), Research on Engineering Education at K-12 Settings across Communities of Practice: A Systematic Literature Review (2009-2018) Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41112

TY - CPAPER
AB - This research aims to provide a systematic review of K-12 engineering education publications between 2009 and 2018 across education research fields. We compared engineering publications produced by two types of journals, engineering education journals (EEJ) and other science/math-related educational research journals (OEJ). The reasoning behind this classification comes from our theoretical stance and initial review of authorship, which shows two distinct, yet intersecting communities of practice (CoP, Wenger, 1999) studying engineering education. The EEJ articles, compared to OEJ articles, were produced by researchers with stronger engineering experience, shared conferences as learning spaces, and typically from engineering education departments. The data collection started with sorting the top quartile of education journals (n=258) according to impact factor and filtering them by title association with K-12 education, S-T-E-M education, student learning, or teacher learning. Then, journal databases were searched using the keyword “engineer” within 2009-2018. The final article inclusion criteria were empirical studies on K-12 populations. A collection of 147 articles from across 21 journals were coded for topics, target populations, and methods, using qualitative constant comparative analysis method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and frequency analysis (Creswell & Clark, 2017). Of the 147 articles, 72 originated from EEJs such as the Journal of Engineering Education, whereas the 75 articles were spread across 19 other educational research journals, for instance, Science Education.
The key findings show that the publication rate of studies between 2014-2018 was doubled compared to the numbers during 2009-2013 for EEJ and OEJ communities. This change might relate to the publication of Next Generation Science Standards (2013) as the first standards highlighting engineering integration to science classrooms. Between 2009-2013, there are distinctions among EEJ and OEJ articles in research design. EEJs produced more quantitative studies than OEJs (28%, 21%, respectively), whereas qualitative studies were produced at a higher rate by OEJs (21%) compared to EEJs (14%). During 2014-2018, both communities produced the same amount of qualitative studies (36%, 36%). However, OEJs significantly increased quantitative studies (4%?17%) compared to EEJs (13%?15%). Across the 10 years, the most frequent topics for both journals were student content knowledge (10%, 8.6%, respectively) and the impact of the engineering design process on student learning (8.0%, 8.2%). On the other hand, EEJs publications were more focused on the application of science and engineering practices (13.1%), whereas OEJs publications were more focused on teacher professional development of engineering topics (8.8%).
Unlike previous systematic reviews focusing on narrow subtopics (e.g., Morelock, 2017), this study aims to review the engineering education field at large across a 10-year timespan. We have contributed to the field by investigating the evolution of research topics and methods in engineering education. This study will interest pre-college engineering educators looking to understand what gaps exist in engineering education studies. The CoP perspective offers a unique contribution to exploring how researchers within engineering education-specific communities can improve their collaborations with other disciplines to develop an ambitious interdisciplinary agenda for K-12 engineering education.

Keywords (3-5):
Systematic Literature Review, K-12 engineering education, Community of Practice (CoP)
AU - Ethan Geheb
AU - Asli Sezen-Barrie
AU - Karissa Tilbury
CY - Minneapolis, MN
DA - 2022/08/23
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Research on Engineering Education at K-12 Settings across Communities of Practice: A Systematic Literature Review (2009-2018)
UR - https://peer.asee.org/41112
DO - 10.18260/1-2--41112
ER -