High School Student Engineering Design Thinking and Performance

High School Student Engineering Design Thinking and PerformanceOur vision is to improve the STEM learning and teaching environment for high school studentsthrough their understanding of engineering design. Engineering employs principles ofmathematics and science to create technologies, thus serving as a STEM integrator. Design isrecognized as the critical element of engineering thinking which differentiates engineering fromother problem solving approaches. The purpose of this exploratory research is to clarifyengineering design as a construct and perform empirical preparatory research on engineeringdesign as a STEM learning experience for high school students. Engineering design has thepotential to integrate science, technology and mathematics concepts for students and is essentialfor developing technological literacy (Katehi, Pearson, & Feder, 2009). This three year projecttests the reasonableness of comparing high school student engineering design thinking with thatof experts, and investigates the feasibility of these research methods by addressing the followingquestion: How does high school student engineering design thinking compare to that ofexperts in terms of engineering design performance and knowledge?Seventy-five participants from four states were asked to think out loud in a three hour designchallenge which was video and audio recorded. Verbal protocol analysis was conducted as thestudents engaged in the engineering design process. The area of focus for this paper is timeallocations across essential elements of the design process. This research may help to uncoverthe elusive cognitive thought processes employed by students as they practice engineering designthinking and will inform curriculum developers and teachers planning classroom strategies toimprove high school students’ understanding of engineering. Results of the NSF funded studywill be presented at the 2012 ASEE conference.