The impact of STEM curriculum on students’ engineering design abilities and attitudes toward STEM

IF 2 3区工程技术 Q2 EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH International Journal of Technology and Design Education Pub Date : 2024-03-18 DOI:10.1007/s10798-024-09883-9

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Abstract

While it has been recognized that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education requires an interdisciplinary approach, integrating multiple subjects in a meaningful way remains challenging for teachers. This study aimed to design a STEM curriculum, emphasizing explicit and continuous scaffolding of students’ reflection on scientific and engineering knowledge. The primary goal was to foster knowledge integration in their engineering designs and enhance their attitudes toward STEM. The study involved fifty tenth-grade students who were guided to discuss and reflect on relevant scientific and engineering knowledge and to apply mathematics for data collection and analysis during the design of their technology products. The research instruments included an assessment of the progression of knowledge integration in students’ engineering designs through student journals and pre- and post-test surveys on attitudes toward science, technology, engineering, and the learning environment. The results reveal that the introduction and explicit scaffolding students’ reflection on scientific and engineering knowledge led to a gradual improvement in knowledge integration within their engineering designs. Students also significantly enhanced their attitudes toward STEM and the learning environment compared to the general school curriculum. This study contributes to interdisciplinary learning that promotes the integration of scientific and engineering knowledge in students' engineering design processes, and to interdisciplinary assessment that evaluates students' knowledge integration across learning progressions and outcomes.

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STEM 课程对学生工程设计能力和 STEM 态度的影响

摘要虽然人们已经认识到科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教育需要跨学科的方法，但以有意义的方式整合多个学科对教师来说仍然具有挑战性。本研究旨在设计一种 STEM 课程，强调为学生对科学和工程知识的反思提供明确而持续的支架。主要目标是促进学生在工程设计中整合知识，并增强他们对 STEM 的态度。这项研究涉及 50 名十年级学生，他们在设计科技产品的过程中，被引导讨论和反思相关的科学和工程知识，并应用数学进行数据收集和分析。研究工具包括通过学生日记评估学生工程设计中知识整合的进展情况，以及关于对科学、技术、工程和学习环境的态度的前后测试调查。结果显示，通过引入和明确引导学生对科学和工程知识进行反思，学生在工程设计中的知识整合能力逐步提高。与普通学校课程相比，学生对科学、技术、工程和学习环境的态度也有了明显改善。这项研究有助于促进学生在工程设计过程中整合科学与工程知识的跨学科学习，也有助于评价学生在不同学习进度和成果中整合知识的跨学科评估。

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来源期刊

International Journal of Technology and Design Education 工程技术-工程：综合

CiteScore

5.30

自引率

19.00%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： The International Journal of Technology and Design Education seeks to encourage research and scholarly writing about any aspect of technology and design education. Critical, review, and comparative studies are particularly prominent, as are contributions which draw upon other literatures, such as those derived from historical, philosophical, sociological or psychological studies of technology or design, in order to address issues of concern to technology and design education. One of the most significant developments of recent years has been the emergence of technology and design education as an integral part of general education in many parts of the world. Its distinctive curriculum features are technological literacy and capability and it highlights the importance of `knowledge in action'', of `doing'' as well as `understanding''.