PECASE: Developmental Engineering: An Examination of Early Learning Experiences as Antecedents of Engineering Education

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。普渡大学的工程教育研究职业奖将研究3至5岁儿童早期工程思维的前兆。这一发展工程领域新颖而全面的研究分为三个阶段，这三个阶段相互促进，将研究目标与教育目标相结合。这项工作将调查幼儿如何感知和学习工程世界，然后将利用这些结果找到适当的方法，将工程概念融入幼儿教育和支持幼儿的发现。第三阶段的重点是教师教育的转型，将发展工程教学法纳入课堂实践。本研究选择了两种不同的环境，一个先行中心和一个大学儿童发展实验室教室，以确保来自不同学生群体的参与。这项研究将促进对与幼儿如何开始思考和学习工程概念相关的基本问题的理解。决定教育和职业道路的选择从很小的时候就开始积累，这项工作将导致更广泛的学生群体和更强的STEM准备。从长远来看，这可以增加填补工程工作所需的工程专业人员的数量和多样性。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)This engineering education research CAREER award to Purdue University will examine early childhood precursors to engineering thinking in children between the ages of 3 and 5. This novel and comprehensive research in developmental engineering has three phases which build on each other and integrate research and education goals. This effort will investigate how young children perceive and learn about the engineered world, and then will use these results to find appropriate ways to integrate engineering concepts into early childhood education and support of young children's discovery. The third phase will focus on transformation of teacher education to include developmental engineering pedagogy in classroom practice. Two different environments have been selected for this study, a head start center and a university child development laboratory classroom, to insure participation from a diverse population of students. This research will advance understanding of fundamental issues related to how young children start to think about and learn about engineering concepts. Choices that determine education and career paths begin to accumulate from a very early age, and this work will result in a much broader student population with stronger STEM preparation. Over the long term this can increase the number and diversity of engineering professionals needed to fill engineering jobs.