Development of a Survey to Assess K‐12 Teachers' Perceptions of Engineers and Familiarity with Teaching Design, Engineering, and Technology

Abstract

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.

Teacher Beliefs about Motivating and Teaching Students to Carry out Engineering Design Challenges: Some Initial Data

“…Yasar, Baker, Robinson-Kurpius, Krause, and Roberts (2006) developed a questionnaire that explored general beliefs and interest of K-12 teachers concerning engineering education. Yasar et al (2006) explored four different sets of beliefs about engineering education: (a) the importance of engineering education, (b) familiarity with engineering education, (c) stereotypical characteristics of engineers, and (d) characteristics of engineering. Essentially, they found that teachers valued engineering education, were not very familiar with it, leaned toward some stereotypic beliefs, and generally knew characteristics of engineering.…”

“…Although the present authors have some concerns over the nature of some of the scales, it can nevertheless be reasonably inferred that teachers value engineering education, but do not know much about it. Unlike Yasar et al's (2006) more general approach, the present investigation examines more specific beliefs about learning outcomes that an actual engineering middle school curriculum is attempting to inculcate in two schools.…”

Elementary Engineering Education (EEE) Adoption and Expertise Development Framework: An Inductive and Deductive Study

“…This level of innovation entails great challenges in preparing elementary teachers because ''the education of the vast majority of elementary school teachers (such as the bulk of our population) did not include engineering or technology activities or information'' (Cunningham et al, 2006, p. 1). The challenge of preparing elementary teachers for engineering teaching also lies in the fact that elementary teachers are generally disinterested in and intimidated by science content (Buczynski & Hansen, 2010) and by DET (Yasar et al, 2006). In addition, it has been shown that engineering teaching has its idiosyncratic properties rendering generic teaching strategies ineffective (Strobel & Sun, 2013).…”

“…However, engineering is not a discipline traditionally taught at the elementary level, and elementary teachers, in comparison to middle and high school teachers, are the least prepared for and least interested in teaching design, engineering, and technology (DET) (Yasar, Baker, Robinson-Kurpius, Krause, & Roberts, 2006). There is an urgent need to prepare elementary teachers to teach engineering.…”

Integrated Engineering in Elementary Education: Tackling Challenges to Rural Teacher Training

“…For example, Yasar and colleagues found that (a) K-12 teachers held stereotypical views of engineers, (b) elementary teachers placed less value on teaching engineering design than secondary teachers do, and (c) teachers, in general, lacked confidence in the abilities to teach engineering design activities. 13,14 Further, the limited available research indicates that elementary teachers report feeling unprepared to teach engineering practices. 15,16 Below we explore these interrelated challenges to teacher professional development in engineering education, as well as some challenges uniquely faced by teachers in rural schools.…”