Exploring the Effectiveness of Reverse Engineering Pedagogy in a Culture-Oriented STEAM Course: from Heritage to Creativity

This research innovatively combines culture-based Culture-STEAM (C-STEAM) with Reverse Engineering pedagogy, aiming to explore the effectiveness of C-STEAM Reverse Engineering Teaching Mode on students’ Creative Thinking, Cultural Competence and Engineering Thinking. The study was conducted in an STEAM course of 90 undergraduate students major in Educational Technology. Based on the observation of the pilot study (Study 1), we refined the research design and accessed its efficacy through quasi-experimental design in the formal study (Study2). The results indicate that the experimental group outperformed the control group in aspects of Creative Thinking. Such as the Rationality, Concreteness, Generate Precise Ideas and Improve Idea. Both the experimental and control groups exhibited significant improvement in terms of the Value, Accuracy, and Logicality of Creative Thinking, overall Cultural Competence, Cultural Understanding, Cultural Identity, and Engineering Thinking. However, the two groups of students did not show significant progress in Generate Diverse Ideas, Flexibility and Evaluate Idea within Creative Thinking, as well as Cultural Practice within Cultural Competence. The study underscores the value of the C-STEAM Reverse Engineering Teaching Mode, particularly in enhancing students’ Creative Thinking, Cultural Competence, and Engineering Thinking, which provides a reference example for teachers to cultivate students’ ability. This study makes up for the gaps in C-STEAM related teaching mode innovation and explores possible directions for the future development of STEAM education. Nevertheless, it necessitates further refinement exploration of its internal mechanism.