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Effects of infusing the engineering design process into STEM project-based learning to develop preservice technology teachers’ engineering design thinking

Partners' Institution
University of Peloponnese

Year of publication
2021

Educational stage
Secondary Level

Journal name
International Journal of STEM Education

Thematic Area
STEAM intervention (teaching strategies, evaluation...)

Summary
The study employed a quasi-experimental design, and twenty-eight preservice technology teachers participated in the teaching experiment. The flow-map method and metalistening technique were utilized to enable preservice technology teachers to create flow maps of engineering design, and a chi-square test was employed to analyze the data. The results suggest that:
1. applying the engineering design process to STEM project-based learning is beneficial for developing preservice technology teachers’ schema of design thinking, especially with respect to clarifying the problem, generating ideas, modeling, and feasibility analysis, and
2. it is important to encourage teachers to further explore the systematic concepts of engineering design thinking and expand their abilities by merging the engineering design process into STEM project-based learning.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
This study is based on the research on engineering design thinking and on STEM project-based learning combined with engineering design.

Results
The results of the experimental teaching activity were that:
- Preservice technology teachers who were taught using the engineering design thinking process (the experimental group) performed better than the control group in problem definition, idea generation, modeling, and feasibility analysis.
- The subjects either used their intuition or convergent/logical thinking to solve the problem after the steps of problem definition, decision-making, and objective confirmation.
- The preservice technology teachers who received engineering design process pedagogy outperformed the control group in the prototype construction and redesign steps.

Point of Strength
Point of Strength

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-020-00258-9

Keywords
Cognitive structure, Engineering design thinking, Flow-map method, Preservice technology teacher, Secondary school