What Do Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers Know About Engineering? - Ron Choi ENG 574

Robinson, Michael and C. Maddux. "What Do Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers Know About Engineering?" The Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 19, no. 5, 1999: 394-402.

In this peer reviewed journal article, the authors report on a study conducted around an engineering-based capstone course for secondary math and science teachers.  The course trained teachers in engineering principles, practice, design, and problem-solving skills, and gave them the practice and skills required to add engineering-style problems to their existing math and science classes.   The study sought to measure the teachers’ changes in attitudes towards engineering after taking the course.  It also measured the changes in students’ attitudes towards engineering, after taking a 3-week unit on engineering principles and design, planned by a teacher who had just completed the capstone course.

The study results showed that for both the teachers and the students, attitudes towards engineering became more favourable after the engineering specific training.  The most compelling part of the article was a comparison of one secondary student’s pretest and posttest comments.

“Pretest—“I really don’t know what they do so I can’t say my impression.”

Posttest—“Well, engineers do a lot of good things for the world and take pride in what they do. If we didn’t have engineers then this world would be very crappy . . . but with them in the world we’re OK. I wouldn’t want to be one but it’s good we have them in the world.”” (400)

I liked reading this article because it approached the issue of perceptions of engineers in a different way than other articles and studies I’ve read up to now.  This course took a more of a top-down approach, where educating the educators produced a positive changes in the students’ attitudes.  This article was written 12 years ago, and I am curious to know if this type of course it still offered to teachers, or if it has since disappeared.

Engineering in children's fiction - not a good story? - Ron Choi ENG 574

Holbrook, Allyson, L. Panozza, and E. Prieto. "Engineering in children's fiction - not a good story?" International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 7, no. 4, 2009: 723-740.

In this peer reviewed journal article, the authors describe a textual analysis junior fiction books, looking for depictions of scientists and engineers.  Their goal was to determine not only the frequency of science and engineering portrayed, but also the form in which is occurred.  They coded 4,800 children’s books from two large public libraries, and found that only 71 referenced science and engineering themes.  When the stories were more humorous (almost half the occurrences), the use of scientific stereotypes, e.g. nerdy, eccentric was more prevalent.  74% of the protagonists were male, and specific activities, such as building, making and working with machines were depicted as male focused. 

The authors commented that information on the content of children’s books is not easy to obtain, and recommended a more exhaustive strategy to improve the study in the future.  They also mentioned that analyzing titles available in a public library does not accurately represent the entire population of children’s literature.  However, they also point out that even if there are more books with engineering and science depiction available, library collections are guided by various selection criteria, including consumer interest, which would indicate at the very least that these types of books are not popular.  Overall, their results would seem to confirm their initial assumption that engineering is largely an invisible occupation.

The authors also admit that although the general depiction of engineers and scientists is generally gender biased and stereotypical, that there is no insight into how deeply these projected stereotypes are actually absorbed by their young readers.

The results of this study were a little surprising for me.  I thought that they would be more frequent depictions of scientists and engineers in children’s literature.  But in retrospect, I’m probably more attuned to looking for and seeing such occurrences, given my own engineering background.  However, I am not at all surprised by the prevalence of the male, nerdy stereotypes, particularly in the humorous stories.  I consider that to be an accepted practice.  The issue is that at this young age, readers are not being presented with many alternative ideas and images of engineers and scientists.

This article is an extension of one of the ideas brought up by an earlier reading – whether or not a more diverse engineering student body would result in engineers with better communication skills.  If more children are presented with a positive image of engineering as a career and therefore more students choose to study engineering, will the communication skills of all engineers improve?  Or perhaps does that study and affinity group of engineering somehow impede the development of one’s communication skills?

Perceptions of engineering from female secondary college students in regional Victoria - Ron Choi ENG 574

Darby, Linda, S. Hall, K. Dowling, B. Kentish. "Perceptions of engineering from female secondary college students in regional Victoria." 14th Annual AAEE Conference. Melbourne: Australasian Association for Engineering Education (AAEE), 2003. 507-516.

In this conference article, the authors present preliminary findings from surveys and focus groups which revealed female secondary students’ (aged 14-15) perceptions of engineering.  The purpose of the qualitative study was to reveal barriers to entry for female students, and ultimately provide insight into how to overcome them.   The study was conducted as a series of small, 2-3 person focus groups in the Victoria area.  Participants were chosen based on a six-level sampling strategy, to select those who were inclined towards careers in maths and science, and for whom engineering could easily be a career choice.  As part of the focus group, the participants were asked to draw a picture depicting an engineer doing what engineers do.

The results suggested that these female students had a lack of knowledge of engineers and engineering jobs and activities, stemming from a lack of visible engineering role models and limited education on engineering as a career.  This resulted in an inability for the participants to connect their own interests with being an engineer.  It also created a reliance on society’s image of engineering to form their opinions, and engineering was perceived to be a male dominated industry, and therefore unattractive to the women.  These factors ultimately result in a low interest in the perceived image of engineers. 

I found this article to have phenomenological validity, as it rung true regarding what conventional wisdom would tell us about engineering and female perceptions towards engineers.  This article does not focus on my original research topic, relating to communication skills, but it did spark and idea/question in my mind, as to whether or not the lack of diversity in engineering is a cause or effect of the deficiencies in engineers’ communication skills.  If engineering programs in North America had more equal percentages of men and women in them, and if they had a broader ethnic landscape, would the social and communication skills of the students be improved?

The image of engineering: The silence of the nerds? - Ron Choi ENG 574

Braham, James. "The image of engineering: The silence of the nerds?" Machine Design, Vol.64, Iss.17, 1992: 75-80.

In this article, Braham offers an editorial examination of the engineering community’s attempts to bolster the public’s perceptions of engineers.  The author uses a combination of anecdotes, interviews and survey data to underline the some of the negative and inaccurate perceptions of engineers, and discusses the attempts of engineering societies to identify and correct these misconceptions.  Braham looks at engineers in society and pop culture, examining the Dilbert comic strip, engineers in politics, TV and movies.  Braham also explores a survey on how some engineers see themselves, noting that in some cases, the public perception is aligned with self-perception.  Both the general public and electrical engineers perceived themselves as socially awkward and lacking in good communication skills.  Braham concludes with a discussion of some of the actions being taken to increase awareness and understanding of engineering.

Although this was an editorial article in an engineering trade magazine, and not a peer-reviewed academic journal piece, I still found it to be quite useful in speaking to the conventional wisdom surrounding engineers and communication skills.  The author is an engineer who has contributed to articles which have been cited by many others.  Combining the anecdotes, pop culture references, interviews and survey data provides a multi-faceted examination of the poor image of engineers’ communication skills, both publicly and self-perceived.  For my research, I would attempt to track down the original survey sources, and more importantly, find newer equivalents, since this article was written in 1992.  

The pop culture references used in the article also made me wonder how the media may have affected public perception of engineers over the past 20 years.  TV shows like “The Big Bang Theory” have capitalized on the image of the socially awkward scientists and engineers – does public exposure of this sort only re-enforce the negative image, or perhaps increase the social acceptance of engineering or “geek” behavior?