An examination of early elementary students' approaches to engineering

Abstract

A five-week interactive workshop gave us the opportunity to study the engineering learning processes of early elementary children, allowing us to gain a sense of their innate engineering abilities and the processes they could be taught in the context of the Project Inter-actions study at Tufts University Department of Child Development. Forty children participated in the research, split into four groups of 10 each, each group participating in 5 workshop sessions of 2 hours each. In two of the groups, the children worked on self-generated engineering projects by themselves, while the other half worked with their parents to generate and complete the project. The children used a robotic construction kit composed of Lego pieces, an RCX computerized Lego brick, and the ROBOLAB computer software to bring their projects to life. Children also kept a design journal, allowing an understanding of their thought process. Children were videotaped during the workshop and completed questionnaires before and after the experience. All of this data allows us to examine areas in the design process where children are innately strong, and areas in which structured instruction aided in the children's conception of engineering. Instruction could come in the form of the short teacher lessons that occurred in the beginning of each workshop, individualized teacher interaction, or interaction between parent and child. Understanding the role of the adults in the workshops, either parents or instructors, would allow for greater generalization to other learning environments where young children are practicing engineering and demonstrate that five year olds are capable of gaining a greater appreciation and understanding of the engineering process.