ERIC Number: EJ1477594
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Aug
Pages: 34
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-4308
EISSN: EISSN-1098-2736
Available Date: 2025-01-20
Addressing Media and Information Literacy in Engineering Design Education: Learning to Design Technologies in the Era of Science Denial and Misinformation
Greses Pérez1; Trevion Henderson2; Kristen B. Wendell2
Journal of Research in Science Teaching, v62 n6 p1546-1579 2025
Engineering design entails making value-laden judgments against ill-defined, ambiguous, and/or competing sociotechnical criteria. In this article, we argue that such conditions make engineering designers particularly susceptible to the potentially deleterious effects of mis/disinformation in the processes and practices of engineering design, their engagement with people and communities, and in the production and evaluations of the artifacts they produce. We begin by critiquing dominant approaches to engineering design education, specifically, engineering education's social-technical dualism and the ubiquitous ideology of depoliticization, which has exacerbated the effects of mis/disinformation in engineering design. We follow by outlining a framework for developing students' capacity for mitigating its effects in the specific context of engineering design thinking and making value-laden engineering judgments and decision-making. We envision three areas of opportunity for engineering design education to teach students strategies for navigating these challenges when engaging with (a) the processes and practices of engineering, which reflect the unique types of information students engage with across the design process, (b) people and their communities, including the strategic and careful performance of activities for gathering information, while mitigating the harms to misinformation and disinformation and maximizing the benefits of community involvement, and (c) the social and technical criteria of engineering design outcomes in the form of artifacts (e.g., products, processes).
Descriptors: Media Literacy, Information Literacy, Engineering Education, Design, Scientific Literacy, Misinformation, Science and Society, Evaluative Thinking, Decision Making, Learning Strategies, Information Seeking
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://www.wiley.com/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 2239348
Author Affiliations: 1Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Secondary Appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Education, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA; 2Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Education, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA