Design and Development: Diversifying Engineering via Identity-Congruent Education (DE-ICE)

研究表明，那些在很小的时候就不能把自己视为工程师的学生，在以后的生活中不太可能从事工程职业。对于那些可能不容易获得学术和课外活动的学生来说，这尤其如此，包括来自农村和城市人口的不同学生。研究表明，将与工程相关的教育游戏纳入中学课程可以帮助学生培养工程师的身份。这个项目的重点是四年级学生，因为这是一个关键的年龄，许多来自弱势群体的学生选择退出工程教育的轨道。这个项目为四年级的教室开发并引入了展示工程概念的教育游戏。这些游戏是与老师共同设计的，他们将根据学生的工程意识以及他们如何认同工程的方式来研究玩这些游戏的效果。这项研究将从学生那里收集有关他们相关教育经历的各种数据。这些数据，包括笔记本条目、访谈和焦点小组，将帮助研究人员调查和概括此类游戏在促进帮助中学生识别追求工程职业道路潜力方面的功效。教育游戏体验的描述、课堂实施以及对学生工程身份形成的评估将自由分享。最近的研究表明，当采用具有文化响应性、长期显著性和身份一致性的综合框架时，小型教育干预会产生巨大的积极影响。此外，基于数字游戏的学习在基础工程教育中已经显示出巨大的前景。本项目将透过数位游戏为基础的学习经验，运作基于身份的动机框架，旨在加强不同小学生的工程身份形成。学生的工程认同评估将使用“绘制工程师测试”和“工程认同发展量表”等工具进行。基于身份的动机框架将为干预提供信息，这将包括学生创造工程人物，他们将互动地解决基本的工程问题。这些干预措施将整合数学和科学的人道主义工程应用，课程计划与《下一代科学标准》相匹配，并与蒙大拿州《印第安人全民教育法案》中的《基本理解》保持一致。对学生干预后的工程身份的评估将增加对访谈、焦点小组和游戏工件的分析，以阐明有效增强工程身份形成的干预特征。数据收集和分析将依靠创新的定性方法，包括效果矩阵和网络分析，以确定教育干预经验对学生工程身份的影响。这种混合方法的研究将使我们更深入地了解学生对工程学的态度和倾向，以及影响他们的干预设计、开发和/或经验的特点。这项研究还将产生可采用的教育干预措施，旨在鼓励不同学生群体的工程身份形成。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Studies show that students who are not able to see themselves as an engineer at an early age are less likely to pursue engineering careers later in life. This can be especially true of students who may not have easy access to academic and extracurricular activities, including diverse students from rural and urbans populations. Research has shown that incorporating engineering-related educational games into middle school curricula can help students develop an identity as an engineer. This project focuses on fourth grade students because this is a pivotal age where many students from underrepresented groups opt out of an engineering educational trajectory. This project develops and introduces educational games for fourth grade classrooms that demonstrate engineering concepts. The effect of playing these games, which are co-designed with teachers, will be studied in terms students' sense of engineering and how the way they identify with engineering as a result. The study will collect a variety of data from students about their related educational experiences. The data, including notebook entries, interviews, and focus groups, will help researchers investigate and generalize the efficacy of such games for promoting helping middle school students identify with the potential to pursue a career path in engineering. Descriptions of the educational game experiences, their classroom implementations, and assessments on student engineering identity formation will be shared freely.Recent studies show large positive effects of small educational interventions when employing integrative frameworks that are culturally-responsive, chronically-salient and identity-congruent. Additionally, digital game-based learning has demonstrated significant promise in elementary engineering education. This project will operationalize the identity-based motivation framework via digital game-based learning experiences aimed at enhancing engineering identity formation of diverse elementary students. Assessment of students' engineering identity will be made using instruments including the "Draw an Engineer Test" and the "Engineering Identity Development Scale." The identity-based motivation framework will inform the interventions, which will include students' creation of engineering characters who will interactively solve basic engineering problems. The interventions will integrate humanitarian engineering applications of math and science, with lesson plans mapped to the Next Generation Science Standards and aligned with Essential Understandings within Montana's Indian Educational for All Act. Assessment of students' post-intervention engineering identities will augment analyses of interviews, focus groups and game play artifacts in elucidating intervention features effective in enhancing engineering identity formation. Data collection and analysis will rely on innovative qualitative methods, including effects matrices and network analyses, to determine the influence of the educational intervention experiences on students' engineering identity. This mixed-method research will result in a deeper understanding of students' attitudes and dispositions toward engineering, and the features of the intervention design, development and/or experiences that influenced them. This research will also result in adoptable educational interventions designed to encourage engineering identity formation in a diverse group of students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.