This paper describes the development of a survey instrument to assess K-12 teachers' perceptions of engineering and their familiarity with teaching design, engineering, and technology (DET). Item development, field testing, and the factor analysis are described along with reliability and validity. Administration of the instrument revealed differences based on gender, grade level taught, and years of teaching experience. Female teachers rated the importance of DET higher than male teachers, elementary teachers were least likely to teach DET, and moderately experienced teachers were the most willing to learn more about DET. Barriers to infusing DET into the curriculum were time and administrative support. All teachers were unfamiliar with DET, lacked confidence in their ability to teach DET, and held stereotypes about the skills needed to be an engineer. Based on the findings, recommendations are made for professional development of K-12 teachers and for the pre-service teacher preparation curriculum.

The purpose of this study was to try to determine what influences girls to choose science. Forty girls were interviewed in Grades 2, 5, 8, 11 using a semistructured protocol. The interview focused on feelings about science, science careers, peer and parental support, and how science is taught. To determine whether their responses were based on gender, each girl was asked to respond to questions as if she were a boy. The girls were highly self‐confident and positive about science. All of the girls took a strong equity position and asserted that women can and should do science. The girls liked learning science in an interactive social context rather than participating in activities that isolated them such as independent reading, writing, or note taking. Those who chose science careers were drawn to them because of strong affective experiences with a loved one and a desire to help. The interviews were analyzed through the framework of women's affective and psychological needs.

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The purpose of this study was to try to determine what influences girls to choose science. Forty girls were interviewed in Grades 2 , 5 , 8, 1 1 using a semistructured protocol. The interview focuscd on feelings about science, science careers, peer and parental support, and how science is taught. To determine whether their responses were based on gender, each girl was asked to respond to questions as if she were a boy. The girls were highly self-confident and positive about science. All of the girls took a strong equity position and asserted that women can and should do science. The girls liked learning science in an interactive social context rather than participating in activities that isolated them such as independent reading, writing, or note taking. Thosc who chose science careers were drawn to them because of strong affective experiences with a loved one and a desire to help. The interviews were analyzed through the framework of women's affective and psychological needs.Over the years many factors have been investigated to understand why so few women choose science careers. These factors are located primarily within the realm of school and society. However, despite the large number of studies conducted, this research tells us very little about which factors influence girls to choose or reject a scientific career.Another relatively recent line of research addressing the women in science question has focused on women themselves. In particular, it focuses on women's decision-making processes in the context of the psychology of women. This research, embedded in feminist paradigms, employs a different set of assumptions, research designs, and psychological models from those normally found in the science education literature. Ground-breaking studies within this framework suggest that feminist perspectives hold greater proniise for understanding the relationship of girls and women to science than those frameworks employed in the past.Because we have chosen to investigate this promise rather than place our research in the more familiar context, we will first provide an overview of the methodologic issues involved in the feminist scholarship that influenced this study. Then we will present a brief review of the feminist literature used to interpret our data and contrast it with the lack of explanatory power of the literature within the traditional research paradigm. Methodological IssuesFeminist researchers interested in the question of women and science have moved away from paper and pencil assessments and quantitative analysis toward a more qualitative and