2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 173: Results of Girl Scouts Taking the Draw-an-Engineer Test: Where Do We Go from Here? (WIP)

Presented at Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE) Poster Session

This work-in-progress (WIP) paper discusses the results of one study focused on an informal engineering experience for middle school girls. Informal engineering experiences may be a crucial component in understanding how pre-college students decide to become engineers. Data was collected from middle school Girl Scouts regarding their initial conceptions of engineers using the Draw-an-Engineer Test and a short interview. While many aspects of their drawings, such as the tasks they illustrated the engineers performing, were similar to previous studies employing the DAET, the distribution of genders of the engineers in the drawings was not. Possible sources for this deviation from previous studies, such as influence from troop leaders or parents, and future work to further investigate this deviation are discussed.

Authors

Dr. Abigail Clark http://orcid.org/https://0000-0002-2214-2160 Ohio Northern University [biography]

Abigail Clark is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Ohio Northern University. She holds a PhD in Engineering Education from The Ohio State University. She also holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio State and Ohio Northern University. Prior to her time at OSU, she worked at Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. Her research interests include pre-college engineering education, informal engineering education, and identity development.
Dr. Rachel Louis Kajfez http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9745-1921 The Ohio State University [biography]

Dr. Rachel Louis Kajfez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at The Ohio State University. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from Ohio State and earned her Ph.D. in Engineering Education from Virginia Tech. Her research interests focus on the intersection between motivation and identity, first-year engineering programs, mixed methods research, and innovative approaches to teaching. She is the principal investigator for the Research on Identity and Motivation in Engineering (RIME) Collaborative.

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