This paper presents the results of a 2-year longitudinal study aimed at characterizing and comparing the design cognition of high school students with and without formal engineering design experiences. The students--working as dyads--engaged in design-only sessions generating solutions in response to the same engineering design challenges. The…

The design process is full of judgment, especially around successes and failures that occur through each iteration. Decisions about how to proceed when ideas do not work can be especially challenging for beginning designers. Yet, experts are able to demonstrate more natural regulation of the process. This research focused on the experiences of…

One of the characteristics of the twenty-first century is the increase in the information sources available to designers to make their design decisions. However, current verbal protocol analysis methods and theoretical frameworks do not explain how internal and external information sources contribute to novice designers' moment-to-moment thought…

Design within primary and secondary schools has been increasingly emphasized over the past decade. As a response to this increased interest, qualitative research examining students' cognitive processes involved in the practices of design has been on the rise. These studies have commonly employed the concurrent think-aloud research methodology to…

In this article, we explore the cognitive process and resources drawn upon when moderating artwork. The cognitive processes involved in the external moderation of non-exam assessments has received little attention; the few research studies that exist investigated moderation where the candidates' submissions were in mostly written form. No studies…

Reported in this article are initial results from of a longitudinal study to characterize the design cognition and cognitive design styles of high school students with and without pre-engineering course experience over a 2-year period, and to compare them with undergraduate engineering students. The research followed a verbal protocol analysis…

This article reports on an action research project with 9 eighth-grade special education students in a self-contained classroom in an urban public school. The 1st author, in collaboration with the classroom teacher (3rd author), taught the students a critical media literacy framework to explore popular culture websites. Students learned to analyze…

The objective of this research was to explore the relationship between information access and design solution quality of high school students presented with an engineering design problem. This objective is encompassed in the research question driving this inquiry: How does information access impact the design process? This question has emerged in…

A comparative study was conducted to compare two approaches to engineering design curriculum between different schools (inter-school) and between two curricular approaches, "Project Lead the Way" (PLTW) and "Engineering Projects in Community Service" (EPIC High) (inter-curricular). The researchers collected curriculum…

The purpose of this study was to better understand cognitive strategies used by high school technology education students who have participated in technology education instruction with an engineering design focus. Specifically, this study evaluated the cognitive strategies of students participating in "Project Lead the Way" curriculum…