2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

A Mixed Methods Evaluation of a Middle School LEGO®-based Hands-On STEM Workshop (Evaluation)

Presented at Pre-College Engineering Education Division (PCEE) Technical Session 16: Assessment, Documentation, and Evaluation in Pre-College Engineering Education

LEGO®-based activities are widely used in K-12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education as they support hands-on learning while being enjoyable and effective in teaching a wide range of scientific principles. Using LEGO® Technic™ and MINDSTORMS® EV3 components, we designed and facilitated a three-day interdisciplinary middle school workshop introducing laboratory automation, experimental chemistry, and engineering design through a series of hands-on activities. Student groups assembled three types of LEGO® lab equipment (syringe pump, orbital shaker, centrifuge), used each machine to automate three steps of a chemistry experiment (synthesis of calcium carbonate microparticles), and finally planned and prototyped modified designs of their lab equipment for different purposes. We evaluated the workshop using a mixed methods approach that combined student free-response reflections, facilitator observations, and a follow-up teacher interview with an exploratory survey administered before, immediately after, and three weeks after the workshop. While most survey items did not change significantly, the qualitative data provided insights into student experience. In particular, the chemistry activity appeared to elicit strong engagement, whereas the students unfamiliar with the Technic™ pieces experienced reduced confidence in building with LEGO®. Based on these insights, we offer practical guidance for designing interdisciplinary STEM workshops that balance structure, autonomy, and difficulty in middle school settings.

Authors

Diane N. Jung University of Colorado Boulder [biography]

Diane Jung is a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. She earned her MS in Mechanical Engineering from the same institution and a BA in Physics from Willamette University.
Meghan Eliza Liu Stancliff University of Colorado Boulder [biography]

Meghan Eliza Stancliff is working towards a Biomedical Engineering major with a Creative Writing minor. As a disabled Chinese-American woman studying engineering, Meghan Eliza seeks to facilitate positive change within academia and industry by studying engineering processes and finding ways to make it more inclusive and equitable for minority groups. Meghan is passionate about changing the narrative of how society perceives and understands Engineering/STEM, and plans to research how rigid systems can be changed from the ground up—by altering how we teach K-12 students technical subjects. She hopes to break down barriers and norms that keep people from exploring Engineering/STEM while bringing creative, interdisciplinary, outside-of-the-box thinkers to the field. She loves problem-solving, ethics, and the humanities and is excited to marry the two for her research in Stakeholder Perspective Taking and engineering interdisciplinary communication education.
Grace Burleson University of Colorado Boulder [biography]

Grace Burleson is an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Faculty Fellow in the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering and Resilience at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA. Through experimental and ethnographic human subjects research, her research group seeks to advance engineering design theory and methods so that solutions lead to improved social, environmental, and economic outcomes. Dr. Burleson earned her PhD in Design Science from the University of Michigan, as well as MS in Applied Anthropology and MS/BS in Mechanical Engineering from Oregon State University.
Carson J. Bruns http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4285-2725 University of Colorado Boulder [biography]

A creator of color-changing tattoo inks and shape-shifting molecular machines, chemist/artist Carson Bruns uses nanoscience to invent new materials and technologies. Dr. Bruns has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications and received the National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award in 2023. He is currently an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering with the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he directs the Emergent Nanomaterials Lab.

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