Investigating How Children Learn and Perceive Engineering Design Knowledge Through Automotive Design Practices

This study investigated the effect of automotive design practices on elementary school children's engineering design knowledge as well as perceptions. We designed an automotive engineering design course with knowledge from each of the four STEM subject to engage fifty-six 6th graders in a four-week long design intervention. To ensure the effectiveness of the course, the design-based approach was adopted, producing two iterations of intervention to align pedagogy with observed learning outcome. Three measures were implemented to investigate changes in one's engineering design knowledge and perception before and after the intervention, including (1) the Knowledge Measure, (2) the Self-efficacy Measure and (3) the Design Process Measure. It was found automotive design experiences improved participants' overall understanding of STEM knowledge while changes in mathematics were most apparent. Significant differences in participants' self-efficacy were found in the second iteration, such as goals orientation, sketching and prototyping. Lastly, through graphical analysis, we found participants' engineering design process was improved after the automotive design intervention.