Skip to main content

Advertisement

Springer Nature Link
Log in

Examining Middle School Students’ Engineering Design Processes in a Design Workshop

  • Published:
Research in Science Education Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Design thinking has an important role in STEM education. However, there has been limited research on how students engage in various modalities throughout the design process in hands-on design tasks. To promote middle school students’ engineering literacy, it is necessary to examine the use of design modalities during design. Using a case study approach, we examine middle school students’ design stages and modalities during design activities. We also identify the patterns of design processes in the teams with different design outcomes. Drawing on theories in design thinking and embodied interaction, we proposed a framework and devised a video analysis protocol to examine students’ design stages and modalities. Middle school students attending a design workshop engaged in two design activities in teams of 3–4 people. The design sessions were video recorded and analyzed using the video analysis protocol. The teams engaged in the stages of planning, building, and testing, while employing the verbal, the visual, and the physical modalities. The teams that varied in design outcomes exhibited different patterns in the use of multiple modalities during the design stages. This study contributes to research on design thinking by proposing a framework for analyzing middle school students’ multimodal design processes and presenting data visualization methods to identify patterns in design stages and modalities. The findings suggest the necessity to examine students’ use of design modalities in the context of design stages and imply the potential benefits of using multiple modalities during design. The implications for future research and education practices are also discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
€32.70 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (Finland)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Ainsworth, S. (1999). The functions of multiple representations. Computers & Education, 33(2–3), 131–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Atman, C. J., & Bursic, K. M. (1996). Teaching engineering design: Can reading a textbook make a difference? Research in Engineering Design, 8, 240–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Atman, C. J., Adams, R. S., Cardella, M. E., Turns, J., Mosborg, S., & Saleem, J. (2007). Engineering design processes: A comparison of students and expert practitioners. Journal of Engineering Education, 96(4), 359–379.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Atman, C. J., Kilgore, D., & McKenna, A. F. (2008). Characterizing design learning: A mixed-methods study of engineering designers’ use of language. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(3), 309–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bankel, J., Berggren, K.-F., Engstro È M, Wiklund, I., Crawley, E. F., Soderholm, D., … Stlund, O. È. (2005). Benchmarking engineering curricula with the CDIO syllabus*. International Journal of Engineering Education, 21(1), 121–133.

  • Best, D. J., & Roberts, D. E. (1975). Algorithm AS 89: The upper tail probabilities of Spearman’s rho. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 24(3), 377–379.

    Google Scholar 

  • Booth, J. W., Reid, T. N., Eckert, C., & Ramani, K. (2015). Comparing Functional Analysis Methods for Product Dissection Tasks. Journal of Mechanical Design, Transactions of the ASME, 137(8). https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4030232

  • Booth, J. W., Taborda, E. A., Ramani, K., & Reid, T. (2016). Interventions for teaching sketching skills and reducing inhibition for novice engineering designers. In Design Studies (Vol. 43, pp. 1–23). Elsevier Ltd. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.destud.2015.11.002

  • Brereton, M. (2004). Distributed cognition in engineering design: Negotiating between abstract and material representations. In G. Goldschmidt & W. L. Porter (Eds.), Design Representation (pp. 83–103). London: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-85233-863-3_4

  • Brophy, S., Klein, S., Portsmore, M., & Rogers, C. (2008). Advancing engineering education in P-12 classrooms. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(3), 369–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown, T., & Wyatt, J. (2015). Design thinking for social innovation. Annual Review of Policy Design, 3(1), 1–10.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, L. E., Sullivan, J. F., & Franklin, B. (1999). Hands-on engineering: Learning by doing in the integrated teaching and learning program. International Journal of Engineering Education, 15(1), 20–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cham, J. G., & Yang, M. C. (2005). Does sketching skill relate to good design? In Proceedings of ASME international design engineering technical conferences and computers and information in engineering conference (Vol. 2005, pp. 1–8). Long Beach, CA: ASME.

  • Clark, A. (2009). Supersizing the mind. Philosophical Psychology (Vol. 22). New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Committee on STEM Education. (2018). Charting a course for success: America’s strategy for stem education. Washington, DC.: National Science and Technology Council.

  • Cropley, D., & Cropley, A. (2005). Engineering Creativity: A Systems Concept of Functional Creativity. In J. C. Kaufman & J. Baer (Eds.), Creativity across domains: Faces of the muse (pp. 169–185). Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

  • de Vries, E. (2006). Students’ construction of external representations in design-based learning situations. Learning and Instruction, 16(3), 213–227.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deckner, D. F., Adamson, L. B., & Bakeman, R. (2006). Child and maternal contributions to shared reading: Effects on language and literacy development. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 27(1), 31–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Demirkan, H., & Afacan, Y. (2012). Assessing creativity in design education: Analysis of creativity factors in the first-year design studio. Design Studies, 33(3), 262–278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dong, A. (2007). The enactment of design through language. Design Studies, 28(1), 5–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dorst, K. (2004). On the problem of design problems-problem solving and design expertise. Journal of Design Research, 4(2), 185–196.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dorst, K., & Cross, N. (2001). Creativity in the design process: Co-evolution of problem-solution. Design Studies, 22(5), 425–437.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dym, C. L., Agogino, A. M., Eris, O., Frey, D. F., & Leifer, L. (2005). Engineering design thinking, teaching, and learning. Journal of Engineering Education, 34(1), 103–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dym, C. L., Little, P., Orwin, E., & Spjut, E. (2009). Engineering design: A project-based introduction. New York: John Wiley and sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • English, L. D., Hudson, P., & Dawes, L. (2013). Engineering-based problem solving in the middle school: Design and construction with simple machines. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research, 3(2), 43–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fish, J., & Scrivener, S. (1990). Amplifying the mind’s eye: Sketching and visual cognition. Leonardo, 23(1), 117–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hathcock, S. J., Dickerson, D. L., Eckhoff, A., & Katsioloudis, P. (2015). Scaffolding for creative product possibilities in a design-based STEM activity. Research in Science Education, 45(5), 727–748.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hennessey, M. P., & Johnson, M. D. (2010). Design and manufacture of a museum-grade children’s indoor trebuchet by mechanical engineering students. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education, 38(1), 28–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hernandez, N. V., Schmidt, L. C., & Okudan, G. E. (2013). Systematic ideation effectiveness study of TRIZ. Journal of Mechanical Design, 135(10), 101009.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Howard, T. J., Culley, S. J., & Dekoninck, E. (2008). Describing the creative design process by the integration of engineering design and cognitive psychology literature. Design Studies, 29(2), 160–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs, J. K., Kawanaka, T., & Stigler, J. W. (1999). Integrating qualitative and quantitative approaches to the analysis of video data on classroom teaching. International Journal of Educational Research, 31(8), 717–724.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johri, A., & Olds, B. M. (2011). Situated engineering learning: Bridging engineering education research and the learning sciences. Journal of Engineering Education, 100(1), 151–185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirsh, D. (2013). Embodied cognition and the magical future of interaction design. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 20(1), 1–30.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kudrowitz, B. M., & Wallace, D. (2013). Assessing the quality of ideas from prolific, early-stage product ideation. Journal of Engineering Design, 24(2), 120–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, D. (2006). Do cognitive changes accompany developments in the adolescent brain? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(1), 59–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lamancusa, J., Jorgensen, J. E., & Fridley, J. L. (1996). Product dissection-a tool for benchmarking in the process of teaching design. In Technology-Based Re-Engineering Engineering Education Proceedings of Frontiers in Education FIE’96 26th Annual Conference (pp. 1317–1321).

  • MacQueen, K. M., McLellan, E., Kay, K., & Milstein, B. (1998). Codebook development for team-based qualitative analysis. CAM Journal, 10(2), 31–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacQueen, K. M., McLellan-Lemal, E., Bartholow, K., & Milstein, B. (2008). Team-based codebook development: structure, process, and agreement. In G. Guest & K. M. MacQueen (Eds.), Handbook for team-based qualitative research (pp. 119–135). Lanham, Maryland: Altamira Press.

  • Marchese, A. J., Ramachandran, R. P., Hesketh, R. P., Schmalzel, J. L., & Newell, H. L. (2003). The competitive assessment laboratory: Introducing engineering design via consumer product benchmarking. IEEE Transactions on Education, 46(1), 197–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martin, L. (2015). The promise of the maker movement for education. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research, 5(1), 30–39. https://doi.org/10.7771/2157-9288.1099

  • McGown, A., Green, G., & Rodgers, P. A. (1998). Visible ideas: Information patterns of conceptual sketch activity. Design Studies, 19(4), 431–453.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McHugh, M. L. (2012). Lessons in biostatistics interrater reliability: The kappa statistic. Biochemica Medica, 22(3), 276–282.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKoy, F. L., Vargas-Hernández, N., Summers, J. D., & Shah, J. J. (2001). Influence of design representation on effectiveness of idea generation. In Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (pp. 1–10). PIttsburgh, PA.

  • McPherson, J. W. (2010). Reliability Physics and Engineering:Time-To-Failure Modeling. Boston, MA: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6348-2.

  • Mehta, C. M., & Strough, J. (2010). Gender segregation and gender-typing in adolescence. Sex Roles, 63(3), 251–263.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mentzer, N., Huffman, T., & Thayer, H. (2014). High school student modeling in the engineering design process. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 24(3), 293–316.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mentzer, N., Becker, K., & Sutton, M. (2015). Engineering design thinking: High school students’ performance and knowledge. Journal of Engineering Education, 104(4), 417–432.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Miller, T. M., & Geraci, L. (2011). Unskilled but aware: Reinterpreting overconfidence in low-performing students. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 37(2), 502–506.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, T. J., Miller, R. L., Lesh, R. A., Stohlmann, M. S., & Kim, Y. R. (2013). Modeling in engineering: The role of representational fluency in students’ conceptual understanding. Journal of Engineering Education, 102(1), 141–178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nathan, M. J., Srisurichan, R., Walkington, C., Wolfgram, M., Williams, C., & Alibali, M. W. (2013). Building cohesion across representations: A mechanism for STEM integration. Journal of Engineering Education, 102(1), 77–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neroni, M. A., Vasconcelos, L. A., & Crilly, N. (2017). Computer-based “mental set” tasks: An alternative approach to studying design fixation. Journal of Mechanical Design, 139(7), 071102.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • NGSS Lead States. (2013). Next Generation Science Standards: For states, by states (vol. 1, The Standards). Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. http://www.nextgenscience.org/next-generation-science-standards. Accessed 6 Jun 2019.

  • Ostafichuk, P. M., Naylor, C., & Fengler, M. (2014). Measuring the influence of team functioning on design project outcomes. Proc. of the 2014 Canadian Engineering Education Association Annual Conference, (p. 7 pages). Canmore,AB.

  • Pahl, G., Beitz, W., Feldhusen, J., & Grote, K.-H. (2007). Engineering design: A systematic approach. Engineering Design: A Systematic Approach. London: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-319-2.

  • Powell, D. R., Burchinal, M. R., File, N., & Kontos, S. (2008). An eco-behavioral analysis of children’s engagement in urban public school preschool classrooms. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 23(1), 108–123.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Purzer, Ş. (2011). The relationship between team discourse, self-efficacy, and individual achievement: A sequential mixed-methods study. Journal of Engineering Education, 100(4), 655–679.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Razzouk, R., & Shute, V. (2012). What is design thinking and why is it important? Review of Educational Research, 82(3), 330–348.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reid, F. J. M., & Reed, S. E. (2005). Speaker-centredness and participatory listening in pre-expert engineering design teams. CoDesign, 1(1), 39–60 Article.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roth, W.-M. (1996). Art and artifact of children’s designing: A situated cognition perspective. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 5(2), 129–166.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roth, W.-M. (2001). Modeling design as situated and distributed process. Learning and Instruction, 11(3), 211–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Safoutin, M. J. 2003. A methodology for empirical measurement of iteration in engineering design processes. Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington, Seattle, WA.

  • Sarkar, P., & Chakrabarti, A. (2011). Assessing design creativity. Design Studies, 32(4), 348–383.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shah, J., & Smith, S. M. (2003). Metrics for measuring ideation effectiveness. Design Studies, 24(2), 111–134.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Simpson, A., Burris, A., & Maltese, A. (2017). Youth’s engagement as scientists and engineers in an afterschool making and tinkering program. Research in Science Education, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-017-9678-3

  • Sobek, D. K., & Jain, V. K. (2007). Relating design process to quality: A virtual design of experiments approach. Journal of Mechanical Design, 129(5), 483–490.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suchman, L. (2000). Embodied practices of engineering work. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7(1–2), 4–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Department of Education. (2015). Science, technology, engineering, and math: Education for global leadership. Retrieved from https://www.ed.gov/stem.

  • Vanasupa, L., Stolk, J., & Herter, R. J. (2009). The four-domain development diagram: A guide for holistic design of effective learning experiences for the twenty-first century engineer. Journal of Engineering Education, 98(1), 67–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wai, J., Lubinski, D., Benbow, C. P., & Steiger, J. H. (2010). Accomplishment in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and Its Relation to STEM Educational Dose: A 25-Year Longitudinal Study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(4), 860–871. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019454

  • Walkington, C. A., Nathan, M. J., Wolfgram, M., Alibali, M. W., & Srisurichan, R. (2014). Bridges and barriers to constructing conceptual cohesion across modalities and temporalities: Challenges of STEM integration in the pre-college engineering classroom. In Ş. Purzer, J. Strobel, & M. E. Cardella (Eds.), Engineering in Pre-College Settings: Synthesizing Research, Policy, and Practices (pp. 183–210). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press.

  • Westmoreland, S., Ruocco, A., & Schmidt, L. (2011). Analysis of capstone design reports: Visual representations. Journal of Mechanical Design, 133(5), 051010.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitebread, D., Coltman, P., Pasternak, D. P., Sangster, C., Grau, V., Bingham, S., Almeqdad, Q., & Demetriou, D. (2009). The development of two observational tools for assessing metacognition and self-regulated learning in young children. Metacognition and Learning, 4(1), 63–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Whitfield, C. F., & Xie, S. X. (2002). Correlation of problem-based learning facilitators’ scores with student performance on written exams. Advances in Health Sciences Education, 7(1), 41–51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(4), 625–636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang, M. C., & Cham, J. G. (2007). An analysis of sketching skill and its role in early stage engineering design. Journal of Mechanical Design, 129(5), 476–482.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou, N., Pereira, N. L., George, T. T., Alperovich, J., Booth, J., Chandrasegaran, S., & Ramani, K. (2017). The Influence of Toy Design Activities onMiddle School Students’ Understanding of the Engineering Design Processes. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-017-9693-1

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Ninger Zhou, Nielsen Pereira, Senthil Chandrasegaran, Tarun Thomas George, Joran Booth & Karthik Ramani

Authors
  1. Ninger Zhou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Nielsen Pereira
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Senthil Chandrasegaran
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Tarun Thomas George
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Joran Booth
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Karthik Ramani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ninger Zhou.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendix. Visualizations of design processes

Appendix. Visualizations of design processes

Teams with design outcome scores between the first and third quartile in the marshmallow tower activity:

figure a

Teams with design outcomes scores between the first and third quartile in the trebuchet activity:

figure b

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zhou, N., Pereira, N., Chandrasegaran, S. et al. Examining Middle School Students’ Engineering Design Processes in a Design Workshop. Res Sci Educ 51 (Suppl 2), 617–646 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-019-09893-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11165-019-09893-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation