Instructional Sequences in Pre-College Engineering Education

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This engineering research project will examine the cognitive aspects of instructional designs for pre-college students who are novices in engineering. A set of rigorous empirical experiments will investigate instructional sequences that dynamically adapt engineering representations, practice, and feedback as pre-college students advance from novices to competent problem solvers in a basic engineering knowledge domain. The research team will use mixed quantitative and qualitative methods within a set of randomized controlled experimental studies with pre-college students in outreach programs. This project will reach over 1,000 pre-college students, including a large portion of minority students, who will participate in the proposed experiments in Arizona. The project participation has the potential to significantly promote the pre-college students? engineering problem solving skills, as well as self-efficacy and interest in engineering. In addition, the findings of this project will inform the development and implementation of effective outreach programs nationwide, thus substantially increasing their effectiveness to attract underrepresented groups to engineering careers.