A closer look at the relationship between course enrollment size and accident occurrences in hands-on engineering design-based STEM courses

Engaging students in hands-on engineering design-based instruction as called for in national science, and technology and engineering (T&E) education standards in the United States (U.S.) poses inherent hazards and risks that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educators must be adequately prepared to address. Helping students develop safer habits while creating solutions to design challenges can translate to practices they will implement at home, in post-secondary education programs, and in the workplace. This study analyzed responses from 117 P-12 educators delivering hands-on engineering design-based STEM instruction in the U.S. Certain protective factors (e.g., safety training) were found to be significantly associated with reducing the odds of an accident; however, when controlling for course enrollment sizes, the odds of an accident significantly increased. Logistic regression models demonstrated that STEM courses with enrollments of 24 or fewer students had an 87.5% reduction in the odds of an accident occurring. Courses with enrollments surpassing 24 students were 8 times more like to have had an accident, and courses with more than 30 students were 21 times more likely to have had an accident occurrence within the past five years. The findings from this study provide insight about the importance of occupancy load and overcrowding in hands-on engineering design-based STEM courses. STEM educators can utilize the results from this study to make informed decisions about addressing significant risk and protective factors associated with accident occurrences. Most importantly, this study has implications for improving safety policies and changing legal precedent related to overcrowding and course enrollment sizes in P-12 STEM courses, which the analyses in this study suggest should help reduce accident occurrences.