Developing solutions to engineering design problems requires access to information. Research has shown that appropriately accessing and using information in the design process improves solution quality. This quasi-experimental study provides two groups of high school students with a design problem in a three hour design experience. One group has…

A huge increase in engineering graduates from the BRIC countries in recent decades potentially threatens the competitiveness of developed countries in producing high value-added products and services, while also holding great promise for substantially increasing the level of global basic and applied innovation. The key question is whether the…

Research experience has been proven to be effective in enhancing the overall educational experience for undergraduate students. In this article, two engineering research projects with undergraduate students involvement are discussed. The projects provided the undergraduate student researchers with motivation for independent research work and…

This report examines the representation of Hispanics among bachelor's degree recipients in the physical sciences and engineering in the US. Hispanics have been increasing their representation across the physical sciences and engineering at an outstanding rate. More broadly, from 2002-2012 there has been a significant increase in…

Background: Learning processes are usually characterized by students' misunderstandings and misconceptions. Engineering educators intend to help their students overcome their misconceptions and achieve correct understanding of the concept. This paper describes a misconception in digital systems held by many students who believe that combinational…

A multipart laboratory activity introducing microbeads was created to meet engineering and engineering design practices consistent with new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Microbeads are a current topic of concern as they have been found to cause adverse impacts in both marine and freshwater systems resulting in multiple states proposing…

Background: Design thinking, with its emphasis on iterative prototyping and mantra of "fail early and often," stands in stark contrast to the typical one-and-done, failure-averse culture of the classroom. Iterative prototyping and fail-forward mindsets could promote valuable iterative practices and positive reactions to failure, but…

This study addresses the development and evaluation of the Physics Problem-Solving Taxonomy (PPST), comprising five levels: retrieval, diagnosis, strategy, conceptual, and creative thinking. The taxonomy draws on Bloom's revised taxonomy in the cognitive domain, the Types of Knowledge Taxonomy, and the Problem-Solving Taxonomy in engineering. The…

An online learning system in support of active learning and formative evaluation via a teaching-by-questioning strategy in classrooms was developed. Following a design-based research paradigm, the theoretical base, design principles, and associated spaces for the system were explicated. Its learning potential in terms of perceived usefulness, ease…

Reasoning about mechanism is central to disciplined inquiry in science and engineering and should thus be one of the foundations of a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. In addition, mechanistic reasoning is one of the core competencies listed in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Engineering Concepts and…

Purpose: Internships play an important role in the choices engineering students make about future career pathways though there is little research about the messaging students receive regarding internships from academics. This messaging is important because it can contribute to the expectations students set for internships which in turn influences…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the flipped classroom strategy to preparatory year instruction on student's self-regulation and social connectedness. A quasi-experimental pre-post-test design conducted with 160 university students enrolled in three educational tracks (health, engineering and science). The students were…

The connections the "Next Generation Science Standards" ("NGSS") creates between science content and practices to literacy and mathematics are especially beneficial at the elementary level. In this article, the authors present a series of lessons a second-grade teacher taught within a thematic unit that integrated standards…

Laboratory-based learning can be weakened by a lack of connection with underlying theory and limited contextualization to enhance motivation. To address these shortcomings, a framework for the development of web-based multimedia prelaboratory modules is proposed. The framework incorporates supportive information (content), utility value (context),…

One of the guiding principles highlighted in "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" (NRC 2012) states that "children are born investigators," claiming that students construct their own understanding of the natural world even before they learn about it in formal learning settings. Even if students lack a thorough…