Design Thinking in Middle School Classroom

Abstract

Engineering design is an iterative process that supports the solution of problems by applying scientific knowledge to make informed decisions. Assessing different levels of expertise in experimentation is a difficult task since these are not usually visible as part of a student’s final design solution. The purpose of this research is to investigate and characterize students’ experimentation strategies while working on a design challenge. This research explores the various aspects of engineering design behaviors in middle school students. Questionnaires, observations, CAD software logs and focus group methodology are employed for qualitative and quantitative data collection. R scripts models are used to visualize and characterize patterns within educational data and validate them using statistical techniques. This study reveals interesting aspects of design thinking processes in students, provides recommendations and opens the discussion to engineering educators and researchers who are interested in understanding and assessing students’ experimentation strategies in engineering design