Emilie A. Siverling

Full list of citations from: Systematic Review of Research in P-12 Engineering Education from 2000-2015

Nations throughout the world have recognized the importance of having a Science, Technology, Engineering, andMathematics (STEM) competent workforce in today’s highly competitive and technical economy. As such, the past fifteenyears have seen a sharp rise in introducing pre-college (P-12) students to engineering and engaging them in learningengineering principles. Policy decisions to include engineering in national curriculum and standards have not beeninformed by as rich a body of research as subjects such as mathematics and science; however, research on P-12 engineeringeducation is on the rise. This paper presents a systematic review of the engineering education research in P-12 published injournals from 2000–2015. A systematic review follows a set of replicable, detailed procedures that describe how the articleswere selected, reviewed, and analysed. The results of this review included 218 peer-reviewed journal articles. The paperdetails the kinds of research and research questions these papers focused on, and synthesizes and discusses findings ofacross different topics, and proposes research topics ripe for further work.

Teachers’ Incorporation of Argumentation to Support Engineering Learning in STEM Integration Curricula

One of the fundamental practices identified in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is argumentation, which has been researched in P-12 science education for the previous two decades but has yet to be studied within the context of P-12 engineering education. This research explores how elementary and middle school science teachers incorporated argumentation into engineering designbased STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) integration curricular units they developed during a professional development program. To gain a better understanding of how teachers included argumentation in their curricula, a multiple case study approach was conducted using four STEM integration units. While evidence of argumentation was found in each curriculum, the degree to which it appeared in each case varied. The strongest potential for argumentation occurred when students were required to explain and justify their final engineering design solutions to the client; certain guiding questions and discussions also promoted argumentation, depending on their structure. Additionally, argumentation was found to support engineering concepts such as the process of design, engineering thinking, communication in engineering contexts, and the application of science, mathematics, and engineering content. These findings support the idea that argumentation can be integrated into P-12 engineering education contexts in order to support students’ STEM learning.