An investigation of students' experiences in a K-12 invention program (Evaluation)

Abstract

The InVenture Challenge is an innovation-driven experience for K-12 students that operates in partnership with an institute of higher education. Students across all grade levels and educational settings (e.g., regular, gifted, and AP classrooms in a variety of subject areas; after school programs) are eligible to participate. Generally, students work in small groups to develop an invention from problem-seeking to prototype over the course of multiple months. In the process, they present their ideas to others, solicit feedback, and iterate on their design multiple times. In the spring, students with the top inventions from their individual schools travel to Georgia Institute of Technology to pitch their inventions to judges and audience members in a statewide competition. The goal of this research is to understand the experiences of teachers and students within the program and the ways they benefit from participating. Initial research efforts have focused primarily on teachers' experiences implementing the program. Through survey, focus group, and interview data collected over the past several years, teachers have also provided their perspectives about how the program has impacted their students. Across several academic years, teachers' survey data reflects a high level of agreement that participation has had a positive impact on their students' communication and teamwork skills, enthusiasm for learning about engineering and entrepreneurship, and knowledge of the engineering design process, how products are made, how to design a sales pitch, and how to start a business. In this paper, we summarize several years of teacher data related to perceived impact on students and present our first pre-post student survey data. This student survey data will allow us to directly investigate students' experiences within the program and examine alignment with their teachers' perceptions of student impacts. Together, this research will provide a multi-faceted view of invention education's impacts on students.