Demetra Evangelou

Person and Thing Orientations: Psychological Correlates and Predictive Utility

Individuals differ in their orientation toward the people and things in their environment. This has consequences for important life choices. The authors review 15 studies on Person and Thing Orientations (PO-TO) using data from 7,450 participants to establish the nature of the constructs, their external correlates, and their predictive utility. These findings suggest that these two orientations are not bipolar and are virtually independent constructs. They differentially relate to major personality dimensions and show consistent sex differences, whereby women are typically more oriented toward people and men more oriented toward things. Additionally, these orientations influence personal preferences and interests. For university students, PO and TO uniquely predict choice of major and retention within thing-oriented fields (e.g., science and engineering).

Engineering curriculum in the preschool classroom: the teacher's experience

The study presented here focuses on the development of an early education Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) curriculum with emphasis on engineering. This article presents the teachers experience as she undertook the task of familiarising herself with the new content and using the curriculum in a university based lab-school classroom in the US. More specifically, the article describes and analyses the collaboration between the teacher and the curriculum developer. It also presents facilitators and barriers during the implementation, as identified by the teacher and the researchers, reports on the multiple stakeholders involved, and raises questions for future research. Engineering education in the precollege years is a developing academic discipline that stems from the need to understand and improve the ways engineers are formally educated. The belief of early experiences as determinants of later experiences has long constituted a basis of educational planning. Therefore, identifying the appropriate age and manner in which early childhood education becomes part of engineering education, is very important in the current climate.

Practicing Engineering While Building with Blocks: Identifying Engineering Thinking.

Childrens free play naturally enhances skills of observation, communication, experimentation, as well as development of rationale and construction skills. These domains, while synthesised, can lead to the development of certain process models regarding the way constructions could be designed, built and improved. The Design Process model constitutes a core concept of engineering. Blocks seem to be one of the best tools to use in order to work towards the development of such a model. This is a qualitative observational study in preschoolers’ free playing with blocks. Eighteen children aged three- to five-years-old were observed and videotaped for four months to examine whether young children can demonstrate instances of precursors to engineering behaviour while building, by demonstrating similarities to the Design Process. Analysis of the video data showed that children demonstrated and articulated goal-oriented design, problem-solving thinking, innovation stemming out of synthesis of multiple designs, pattern repetition (PR) and design testing (DT).

Leadership Training in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Education in Bulgaria.

This synthesis paper explores current leadership training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education in Bulgaria. The analysis begins with discussion of global factors influencing the implementation of leadership training in STEM education in general and then presents information about the current status of leadership training in Bulgaria with emphases on the countrys economics, politics and geographical location as specific factors influencing leadership education. A short background of Bulgaria is presented with regard to population, gross domestic product, educational system, engineering force and possible need for leaders in industry in Bulgaria and the European Union. The paper provides an overall view about the current status of leadership training in all Bulgarian universities offering STEM education and concentrates specifically on two major universities by examining their currently offered programmes. As part of the discussion, similar training elements in other European countries and the USA are presented.

Building bridges – identifying generational communication characteristics to facilitate engineering collaboration and knowledge transfer across field-practicing engineers

As engineers of the Baby Boom generation retire from their career posts, novice engineers are entering the workplace. Workforce transformation and loss of strategic corporate knowledge underscore the need to generate understanding regarding engineering norms aiding or impeding knowledge transfer. While research exists regarding how Millennials learn, utilize technology for learning, and engage in social learning, no research exists utilizing generational categories as a means for analyzing behaviors that might support knowledge transfer .Using quantitative action research, this exploratory study investigates themes of engineering culture, communication, and generational norms. It begins by soliciting viewpoints of Baby Boom and Millennial engineers, comparing each generations’ communication preferences. Findings suggest that while communication differences do exist between the two engineering generations, similarities also abound. This paper discusses how revealing understanding and leveraging the generational communication similarities can be one means for fostering knowledge sharing within the culture of practicing engineers.

Identifying Engineering in a PreK Classroom: An Observation Protocol to Support Guided Project-Based Instruction

This chapter presents an early engineering curriculum for the PreK classroom, justifies the developmental appropriateness of the curriculum by presenting relevant research studies, and concludes with the introduction of an observation protocol to be used by class teachers to identify and evaluate engineering learning. In early education engineering related resources are still very limited. Scattered activities or small scale engineering lesson plans can be found for a teacher to use in class mostly lacking appropriate assessment tools. Additional obstacles center on teacher preparedness and ensuing “discomfort” with engineering content, terminology, and procedures. Limited exposure to engineering content reputed as a difficult discipline requiring rigorous specialization, makes most teachers apprehensive and very reluctant to explore and introduce it in the curriculum. The early engineering curriculum discussed here was developed and implemented in a PreK classroom for 4 months. Student learning and the teacher experience were at the center of the research. The proposed observation protocol was designed in alignment with the research findings. Observation is a powerful tool and in this case it is used to inform assessment in early education. The protocol is expected to assist PreK teachers in developing deep understanding of how to identify and evaluate engineering learning in class.

Work in progress — Developing a curriculum to prepare engineers to participate in public policy

With the increasing proliferation of scientific knowledge and technological artifacts into society comes an increased need to regulate these artifacts and their use. The development and implementation of such regulations and laws in many cases requires both a technical understanding of the functioning of these artifacts and an understanding of how this technology interacts with social and natural systems, and would benefit from the involvement of a technical expert. Clearly, there is an important role to be filled by engineers in the public policy arena. However, there are very few engineers participating in public policymaking and very few engineering programs offer or encourage courses of study in policy. While there is agreement in the engineering education community that an increased focus on Engineering and Public Policy is a good idea, very little empirical evidence has been assembled to guide the establishment of these courses and programs. This paper reports on the development of an initiative at one university to develop a public policy curriculum for engineers that can easily be integrated into the existing engineering program.

Work in progress — Developmental engineering: Using observation for understanding child behaviors as precursors to engineering thinking

Childrens experiences in early childhood have significant lasting effects in their overall development and in the United States today the majority of young children spend considerable amounts of time in early childhood education settings. At the national level, there is an expressed concern about the low levels of student interest and success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Bringing these two conversations together our research focuses on how young children of preschool age exhibit behaviors that we consider relevant in engineering. There is much to be explored in STEM education at such an early age, and in order to proceed we created an experimental observation protocol in which we identified various pre-engineering behaviors based on pilot observations, related literature and expert knowledge. This protocol is intended for use by preschool teachers and other professionals interested in studying engineering in the preschool classroom.