Page 86 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

APPENDIX B 71

The understanding of process or procedural knowledge is related to technological
knowledge. Costa and Liebmann (1997) argued that content should be seen in terms of how it
enhances the development of processes. Process requires the learning of content; each “piece of
subject matter is a way of knowing, a way of representing, or a way of solving problems” (Costa
and Liebemann, 1997, p. 14). Processes may be thought of on three levels: (a) skills, (b)
operations, and (c) dispositions. Skills are discrete and include mental functions, such as
comparing and classifying. Operations, which are larger strategies employed over time, require
clusters of skills. Dispositions are habits of mind, inclinations, and proclivities. Although
procedural knowledge is crucial to learning, it cannot be taught in isolation from conceptual
knowledge.

Method
The present qualitative study was conducted by a team of three researchers with diverse
experiences in secondary school engineering education. When conducting qualitative research, it
is important to specify and reference researchers’ backgrounds and qualifications, because
backgrounds and experiences provide “lenses” through which the outcomes are generated and
reflected upon (Malterud, 2001). Dr. Rodney L. Custer has been extensively involved in
standards, curriculum, and professional development. His formal academic work includes an
industrial engineering cognate in the Ph.D. program and degrees in education, psychology, and
theology. He has served on several National Academy of Engineering studies focused on
technological literacy and was a program officer at NSF. Dr. Jenny L. Daugherty has been a
curriculum specialist on an engineering-oriented secondary level curriculum project, has
conducted several national teacher engineering-oriented workshops, and has been involved in
numerous funded projects focused on K–12 STEM education. Along with a firm grasp of the
issues involved in secondary level engineering education, she also has a broad liberal-arts
perspective based on her B.A. in history and sociology and M.A. in history. Joe Meyer worked
as a civil engineer before pursuing a master’s degree in science education and teaching
secondary math and science. Thus he is familiar with the technical and professional aspects of
engineering as well as the institutional, social, and curricular challenges of teaching secondary
level math and science students.
The primary data were collected for this study in the following ways: (a) a review of
extant documents; and (b) focus groups. The review of extant documents evolved from initial
data collection as the researchers prepared for the first focus group. To provide a framework for
the focus groups, they conducted a thorough review of the literature on the philosophical
underpinnings of engineering and technology. Ultimately, four sets of documents were reviewed:
(a) literature on engineering and technology philosophy; (b) curricular materials focused on
secondary level engineering; (c) curricular standards documents developed for STEM disciplines
and relevant National Academy of Engineering reports; and (d) Delphi research studies relevant
to K–12 engineering.

Review of Extant Documents
The goal of the document review was to systematically identify and review key
documents on core engineering concepts. The selection of documents for analysis varied. The
philosophical literature was selected by a researcher whose doctoral dissertation included a
thorough treatment of the philosophy of engineering and technology. Curricular materials were

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