2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Board 242: Connecting Classroom Curriculum to Local Contexts to Enhance Engineering Awareness In Elementary Youth

Presented at NSF Grantees Poster Session

This paper will present work conducted under NSF’s RFE program. The overall goal of the project is to increase elementary students’ awareness of and interest for engineering careers. This paper will share findings form one participating school during year 3 of the project. Participants included 20 4th grade students attending a public elementary school in a small town in the US mountain west and 23 4th and 5th grade students attending an elementary school located on a Native American reservation. During the project, students were engaged in completing an engineering design activity that was designed to address a local problem and were visited by numerous STEM professionals. To assess the impact of the project on students’ awareness of and interest in engineering-related careers, students were given a pre/post assessment consisting of the Students Attitudes towards STEM (S-STEM) survey (Friday Institute, 2012) and the Engineering Identity Development Scale (Capobianco et al., 2012).
Mean scores of S-STEM survey data indicated that from pre to post assessment, non-reservation students showed increases in attitudes attitudes towards engineering & technology and increase in their feelings of being valued in school and their conceptual understanding of engineering; however, there was a slight decrease in students’ aspirations to become engineers. This indicates that participating students developed a better understanding of engineering careers, but this new understanding did not translate into an increase in aspiration for a career in engineering. There were no significant increases on any of the assessments for the reservation students, however observational data suggests programmatic impact. Further research is needed to identify the best ways to identify programmatic impacts when working with Indigenous communities.

Authors

Dr. Rebekah J Hammack http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8621-1006 Montana State University, Bozeman [biography]

Rebekah Hammack is an Assistant Professor of K-8 Science Education at Montana State University. She holds a bachelors in animal science from the Ohio State University, a masters in animal science from Oklahoma State University, and a doctorate in science education form Oklahoma State University. Prior to beginning her faculty position at MSU, she completed an Albert Einstein Fellowship within the Directorate of Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation and spent 12 years teaching science and engineering in rural and small town settings at the K-8 level. She is also a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Dr. Hammack researches science and engineering teacher efficacy and student engineering identity development at the K-8 level.
Dr. Nicholas Lux Lux http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7434-0660 Montana State University, Bozeman [biography]

Nick Lux is an Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction in MSU’s Department of Education and is an affiliate in the Montana Engineering Education Research Center. He has worked in the fields of K-12 and higher education for over 20 years, and currently teaches in the teacher education program. His teaching and research interests include technology integration in K-12 STEM teaching and learning, and in particular, engineering education and engineering identity formation.
Dr. Paul Gannon Montana State University, Bozeman [biography]

Associate Professor, Chemical Engineering
Associate Director, Montana Engineering Education Research Center
Dr. Douglas J Hacker [biography]

Dr. Hacker is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah and participated in both the Learning Sciences Program and the Reading and Literacy Program.
Dr. Brock J. Lameres http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9388-4092 Montana State University, Bozeman [biography]

Dr. Brock J. LaMeres is a Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Montana State University (MSU) and the Director of the Montana Engineering Education Research Center (MEERC). LaMeres is also the Boeing Professor at MSU where he is responsible for initiatives to improve the professional skills of engineering graduates. LaMeres teaches and conducts research in the area of computer engineering. LaMeres is currently studying the effectiveness of online delivery of engineering content with emphasis on how the material can be modified to provide a personalized learning experience. LaMeres is also researching strategies to improve student engagement and how they can be used to improve diversity within engineering. LaMeres received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has published over 90 manuscripts and 5 textbooks in the area of digital systems and engineering education. LaMeres has also been granted 13 US patents in the area of digital signal propagation. LaMeres is a member of ASEE, a Senior Member of IEEE, and a registered Professional Engineer in the States of Montana and Colorado. Prior to joining the MSU faculty, LaMeres worked as an R&D engineer for Agilent Technologies in Colorado Springs, CO where he designed electronic test equipment.
Ms. Tugba Boz Indiana-Purdue University [biography]

Tugba Boz holds a PhD in Educational Theory and Practice and works as a research consultant in the College of Engineering at the University of Georgia.

Download paper (745 KB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session