Page 89 - Standards for K-12 Engineering Education

Standards for K-12 Engineering Education?

74 STANDARDS FOR K–12 ENGINEERING EDUCATION?

on the fringe of engineering; and (c) concepts in an intermediate category. And third, when this
classification was complete, the groups identified each concept as: (a) doing; or (b) knowing.

Remaining Activities
The culminating activity of the study will consist of a validation/reaction process
conducted by a focus group in late July 2009. The purposes of this phase of the study will be to
(a) provide a context for the findings of the review and focus groups and (b) refine and structure
the list of concepts generated through the review and synthesis activities by the focus groups
(i.e., key stakeholders in secondary level engineering education). Participants will be selected
based on their recognized ability to think conceptually, their knowledge of secondary level
education, and their understanding of the engineering profession. A goal of this purposeful
selection of participants will be to ensure that both STEM education and industry are
represented.
The focus group will be engage in a two-part process designed to compare and contrast
the outcomes of the review and synthesis with the group’s own expertise and thinking. In the
first part, participants will be led through the same concept-identification process used for the
earlier focus groups. In addition to generating concepts and framing the goals of the
investigation, this first activity will help familiarize participants with the process used for
previous groups. The second activity will lead participants through a series of discussions
designed to analyze the group output in light of the synthesized findings from the study to date.

Findings
The researchers’ findings comprised a synthesis of five major analyses including: (a) key
history and philosophy of engineering and technology documents; (b) focus groups, (c)
curriculum materials; (d) standards documents; and (e) Delphi studies on identifying engineering
and technological outcomes. The five analyses yielded an extensive list of more than 100 themes
the research team considered pertinent to engineering. Each member of the team independently
applied the three criteria central to the analysis to each theme (i.e., core, engineering, and
concepts) to all of five sets of materials. Then the team met and engaged in extensive discussions
to compare ratings and arrive at a consensus on the items that met all three criteria. This process
generated a list of core engineering concepts for each set of materials. After consensus was
achieved, a composite list of concepts for all five sets of materials was compiled. Figure 1 shows
the 14 concepts generated through this process and provides brief descriptions and an indication
which of the five input sources applies. It should be noted that the descriptions are directly based
on terminology used in documents throughout the analysis.

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