Session S2F
Implementing Pre-engineering Curricula in High School Science and Mathematics Linda S. Hirsch1, Howard Kimmel2, Ronald Rockland3, and Joel Bloom4 Abstract – The demand for engineers is increasing but the number of students pursuing careers in engineering is not. The Pre-Engineering Instructional and Outreach Program was established to inform students, teachers, parents, and school counselors about careers in engineering and provide teachers with pre-engineering curriculum to better prepare students to enter engineering degree programs. The curriculum focuses on pre-engineering skills and teachers learn to use instructional strategies that support the connections between standards-based science, mathematics and real world engineering. Besides increased enrollment in college engineering programs, successful outcomes include increased knowledge about engineers and more positive attitudes to engineering. Survey instruments to measure attitudes to engineering, and knowledge about engineering careers have been developed. The current paper describes the development of the teachers' survey and reports the programs’ effect on high school teachers’ attitudes to and knowledge about engineering, their concerns about implementing the new curricula and their self-reported preparedness to teach the new curricula and the programs’ effect on their students. Index Terms – Teachers’ attitudes to engineering and knowledge about engineering careers, pre-engineering curricula, High School students’ attitudes to engineering and knowledge about engineering careers. Over the next few years the demand for engineers is expected to increase three times faster than for all other occupations combined [1] but the number of students pursuing careers in engineering is not increasing adequately to meet this demand. In fact the number of students completing baccalaureate degrees in engineering has increased very little over the last decade [2], [3]. One of the many reasons more students are not choosing to study engineering in college and pursue careers in engineering is that they simply do not know what engineering is or what engineers do. Unlike doctors, lawyers and even firemen, engineers are rarely depicted in television shows or movies. Parents, teachers and school counselors often do not discuss engineering as a possible career with students because they also do not know much about engineering or what engineers do.
Although the most crucial reason for many students’ failure to pursue engineering as a career is a lack of academic preparation in high school, especially in science and math [4], even those students who are adequately prepared and initially choose engineering often do not persist. From their investigation of first year dropouts from engineering colleges and universities, Besterfield-Sacre et al, [5]-[7] and others [8][11] argue that grades, while important, only partially explain why students quit engineering. Students who left in good standing had grades similar to those that stayed, but had significantly poorer attitudes to engineering: they had lower general impressions of engineering; less positive perceptions of the work engineers do; valued engineering work less; enjoyed math and science less; placed a lower value on engineering compared to other majors; held negative stereotypes about engineers (e.g. engineers are nerds) or exaggerated positive stereotypes about engineers (e.g. engineers have to be geniuses). Thus, while proper academic preparation is essential for success in engineering, students’ attitudes to engineering and opinions about engineers upon arrival in college are also important predictors of persistence in engineering. Therefore, in addition to being better prepared in math and science, potential college students need to be more well-informed about engineers and engineering not just so more students succeed in engineering but so more students choose engineering as a major. The current paper provides the history for a set of surveys developed to measure students’, teachers’, parents’ and school counselors’ attitudes to engineers and knowledge about engineering careers and reports on the effectiveness of a PreEngineering Instructional and Outreach Program (Pre-IOP) developed by the Center for Pre-College Programs at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) as part of a three-year project funded by the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education [12]-[14]. The objective of the program is to increase the number of students, particularly those from groups traditionally underrepresented in engineering, who enroll in engineering schools in New Jersey. The program has been designed to inform students, their teachers, parents, and school counselors about the rewards of a career in engineering and provide middle and high school teachers with pre-engineering curriculum to better prepare students to enter engineering degree programs. The curriculum focuses on the teaching of pre-engineering skills and teachers are trained to use instructional strategies that support the connections between
1
Linda S. Hirsch, Program Evaluator, Center for Pre-college Programs, New Jersey Institute of Technology,
[email protected] Howard Kimmel, Executive Director, Center for Pre-college Programs, New Jersey Institute of Technology,
[email protected] 3 Ronald Rockland, Associate Dean of Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology,
[email protected] 4 Joel Bloom, Vice-President for Academic and Student Services, New Jersey Institute of Technology,
[email protected] 2
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Session S2F standards-based science, mathematics and real world engineering applications. The current paper includes a summary of the programs’ effect on a group of high school teachers who participated in one of several Pre-IOP workshops offered during the summer of 2003 and the students they taught during the 2003-2004 school year. Teachers’ attitudes to and knowledge about engineering, their concerns about implementing the new curricula and their self-reported preparedness to teach the new curricula are examined. Changes in the high school students’ attitude to and knowledge about engineering from the beginning to the end of the 2003-2004 school year are also examined. A few middle school teachers also attended the workshops but because most did not provide follow-up measures or student data it was not possible to include them in the current study. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SURVEYS Although Besterfield-Sacre and her colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh had developed a survey to measure first year college students’ attitudes towards and self-efficacy about engineering, no survey instruments existed to measure what middle or high school students, teachers, parent or school counselors know about engineering or think of engineering as a possible career. Their survey [5] and others [8], [15] served as models from which we developed Attitudes to Engineering Surveys for: teachers; middle and high school students, parents and school counselors. For more complete details on the development of the surveys as well as their psychometric properties see [16]-[18]. • Attitudes to Engineering: In general each version of the survey measures’ attitude(s) to engineering by asking respondents to agree or disagree with statements about engineers or engineering such as “engineers are nerds” or “I think engineering could be an interesting career” on a five-point scale where 1 indicates strong disagreement and 5 indicates strong agreement. A sixth point allows respondents to indicate they do not know. • Knowledge of Engineering Careers: An important component of all five versions of the Attitudes to Engineering survey is the Knowledge of Engineering Careers measure: a multiple-part open-ended question that asks respondents to “Name five different types of engineers” and to “give an example of the work each type of engineer does”. Space is provided to list five types of engineers and one example of work done by each type of engineer. Each type of engineer is coded as either correct and given a score of “1” (one) or incorrect and given a score of “0” (zero). Possible total scores range from zero to five. Each example of the work they do is coded as either completely correct and given a score of “2” (two), partly correct and given a score of ‘‘1’’ (one) or incorrect and given a score of “0” (zero). Possible total scores range from zero to ten. • Self-Efficacy for Engineering Skills: For High School students, self-efficacy for engineering skills is a self-
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report measure of their self-confidence for the kinds of skills necessary to succeed in engineering like being good at solving problems in more than one way. Because teachers play such an important role in the preparation of students for careers in any field, teachers’ self-efficacy for engineering is a self-report measure of how well teachers think they can help prepare students for a career in engineering. Teachers are asked if they know about things like summer or after school programs to help students prepare for a career in engineering or whether they know where to find out information about careers in engineering or college engineering programs. Talking about Careers in Engineering: To find out who is talking to students about engineers and engineering, students are asked how often their teachers, parents, school counselors and friends have talked to them about engineering as a possible career. TEACHERS
Thirty-six high school teachers participated in a Pre-IOP workshop during the summer of 2003. Teachers completed the Attitudes to Engineering Survey at the beginning of the workshop, the Teachers’ Concerns Questionnaire at the beginning and the end of the workshop and finally a Readiness to Teach form at the end of the workshop. In order to more effectively evaluate the impact of the teachers’ participation in the workshops on students, the teachers were also asked to have their students take the High School version of the Attitudes to Engineering Survey before and after implementing the pre-engineering curricula in their classroom. At the beginning of the school year teachers were sent copies of the High School Attitudes to Engineering Survey to give to their students (pre-measure). Compliance was 86%. Surveys were returned from 16 high schools representing 31 classes for a total of 608 students. Toward the end of the school year the teachers who had their students complete the survey at the beginning of the year were sent another copy of the survey to have their students complete the survey a second time (post-measure). Compliance was not as great for the post-measure as it was for the pre-measure. Surveys were returned from 11 of the 16 high schools representing 19 classes for a total of 391. At this time teachers were asked to complete the Attitudes to Engineering Survey for a second time and the Teachers’ Concerns Questionnaire for a third time. Even though students’ post surveys were received from 19 of the teachers, only 15 of the teachers completed the Attitudes to Engineering survey and the Concerns Questionnaire. TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TO ENGINEERING SURVEY The Teachers Attitudes to Engineering survey (TATE) was used to measure how teachers feel about engineers and engineering (attitudes), how much they know about engineering careers (knowledge), and finally how well
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Session S2F prepared they are to help students prepare for engineering careers (self-efficacy for engineering).
may want to be an engineer and most could now correctly identify five different types of engineers and give at least partly correct examples of the work done by each type.
Attitudes to Engineering In general the teachers were positively disposed to engineers even at the beginning of the workshop. Eighty-seven percent agreed or strongly agreed that engineers are creative and 86% agreed or strongly agreed that they are highly respected. Almost 95% agreed or strongly agreed that ‘engineering could be an enjoyable career’ and 84% agreed that ‘most of the skills learned in engineering are useful in everyday life’. They tended to disagree with some of the negative stereotypes about engineers like engineers ‘usually have little common sense’ or: that engineers were usually those ‘who were called “nerds” in high school’ and they all disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement ‘I would not like any of my students to become engineers’. But, despite teachers’ positive attitudes to engineers and engineering almost 25% indicated they did not know whether at least one of their students was considering studying engineering in college. Engineering Preparation Self-efficacy Initially teachers did not seem to be very confident that they had sufficient information to help prepare their students to consider engineering as a possible career. Sixty-one percent (61%) disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that ‘I have all the information I need to help prepare any of my students who may want to be an engineer’. Almost seventy percent indicated they knew ‘where to find the necessary information to help their students if they want to become engineers’ but that means that 30% did not know where to find such information. On a more positive note though, most of these teachers (86%) said they would encourage their talented math and science students to pursue a career in engineering while only 44% said they would encourage them to pursue a career in medicine. Knowledge of Engineering Careers Despite their apparent positive attitudes towards engineering only 68% of the teachers correctly named 4 or 5 different types of engineers. Another 11% correctly named 2 or 3 types. The remaining 21% did not correctly name any. When asked further to give examples of the type of work done by each type only 32% gave five examples that were completely correct (10 points) and 16% did not give any completely correct answers (i.e. a score of only one or zero). Because less than half the teachers completed the Attitudes to Engineering survey at the end of the school year it was not possible to test for significant changes in their attitudes, knowledge and self-efficacy but a few points are worth mentioning: None of the teachers indicated that they did not know if any of their students were considering studying engineering, almost 100% agreed or strongly agreed that they have all the information needed to help prepare students who
TEACHERS’ CONCERNS ABOUT INTEGRATING ENGINEERING INTO THEIR CLASSROOM Teachers concerns about integrating engineering into their classrooms were measured using The Teachers’ Concerns Questionnaire adapted from the Concerns Based Assessment Model (CBAM) developed at the R & D Center for Teacher Education at the University of Texas at Austin [19]. The CBAM focuses on how teachers progress through seven stages of concern: Awareness, informational, personal, management, consequences, collaboration and refocusing; as they engage in implementing educational reforms. Repeated administrations of the Concerns Questionnaire adapted for teachers in Pre-IOP tracks changes in teachers’ preoccupations and worries about incorporating engineering concepts into their classrooms. Teachers were given the Concerns questionnaire three times: at the beginning of the Pre-IOP summer workshop they attended, at the end of the summer workshop and then again at the end of the following school year. Evaluation of the teachers’ responses indicates that teachers’ concerns changed from the beginning to the end of the summer program. Initially they were most preoccupied with increasing their awareness of engineering topics and gathering information. They also had substantial personal concerns (e.g. the time & energy commitments required by the innovation) and management worries (e.g. Will I have enough time and energy to implement this?). As is to be expected they were not very preoccupied with the impact of engineering on their students, or with how they might collaborate with other teachers. By the end of the workshop there was a shift in their concerns. Teachers were less worried about getting sufficient information and they had significantly fewer personal and management concerns. This suggests that they were feeling more confident about their ability to implement the program and had begun to focus on whether it would help their students learn science. Very few of the teachers completed the Concerns Questionnaire at the end of the school year but those that did were beginning to have concerns about the impact of the program on their students and had already begun to think about how they might work in collaboration with other teachers to maximize the effectiveness of the program. TEACHERS’ READINESS TO TEACH The 36 teachers did not all attend the same workshop and the topics of the workshop they attended varied: Electricity and Magnetism, Introduction to Engineering Design, Digital Electronics, Integrating Chemical Engineering into High School Science and Integrating Engineering into High School Mathematics.
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Session S2F At the end of the workshop teachers completed a Readiness to Teach form. The Readiness to Teach form asked teachers to indicate how ready they felt they were to teach lessons on the topics from their particular workshop on a scale from 1 to 4 where 1=’I would have to start from scratch’, 2=’I would need more training to teach this topic’, 3=’I would have to look at my notes to do this’ and 4=’I can teach a lesson on this topic tomorrow’. For example, a typical item on the Readiness to Teach form for Integrating Chemical Engineering into High School Science asks ‘How ready are you to teach about fluid flow?’ Average Readiness to Teach scores were calculated for each workshop by averaging all responses from each teacher within a workshop. The average score for teachers who attended the Electricity and Magnetism workshop (3.4) was significantly higher than for the other four workshops: Introduction to Engineering Design (3.0), Digital Electronics (3.1), Integrating Chemical Engineering into High School Science (3.1) and Integrating Engineering into High School Mathematics (3.1). In general, since teachers’ average responses for each workshop were just over 3, one can conclude that although teachers were not saying they could teach all the topics tomorrow, for some they could and for some they only needed to look at their notes, which is extremely encouraging. Rarely did they indicate they needed more training to teach a topic. STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TO ENGINEERING SURVEY The percentage of high school students that indicated their teachers had talked to them about engineering as a possible career increased significantly from 45% at the beginning of the school year to 68% at the end of the school year while no significant increases were found in the percentage of students who indicated that their parents, school counselors or friends had talked to them about engineering as a possible career. This suggests that teachers’ participation in the Pre-IOP workshop was responsible for the increase rather than some other event that would have affected their friends, parents and school counselors as well. Students were also asked to indicate how often any of their math, science or technology teachers had presented engineering principles as part of their classroom teaching. The frequency with which students indicated any of their teachers did so increased from the beginning of the school year (premeasure) to the end of the school year post-measure (X23 = 75.2, p
