<p> Due in part to increasing state standards that require engineering in K-12 curricula and the Next Generation Science Standards&rsquo; incorporation of engineering outcomes, inclusion of engineering into elementary classrooms is on the rise. Teacher development and experiences in learning about and implementing engineering have been studied, but elementary students&rsquo; experiences when learning about engineering have not been explored.</p><p> The purpose of this study is to address the question: How do elementary students&rsquo; knowledge of, attitudes toward, and overall conceptions of engineering evolve over three years of engineering instruction?</p><p> This study follows seven elementary school students through three years of engineering instruction from second through fourth grade. During each year of the study, students took part in one complete Engineering is Elementary unit, preparatory engineering lessons discussing engineering and technology, and optional additional engineering design activities. Data was collected at the beginning and end of each school year, including a semi-structured interview, a Draw an Engineer Task, the Engineering Identity Development Scale, and a Student Knowledge Test. This data was used to build descriptive case studies for each individual student, addressing the research question at the beginning and end of each school year. A cross-case analysis compares findings across all seven students to further explore the research question.</p><p> Through the engineering intervention, students were expected to learn that engineers design technology. For a complete understanding, students needed to know that technology is any object, process, or system that is man-made in order to solve a problem. They also needed to understand engineering as a technical design process where the outcome is the complete plan for a product or process, not necessarily the product or process itself. All of the students in the study described engineering as design and nearly all of the students correctly described technology as man-made, useful items at some point during the study. Three of the seven students described engineering as design of technology with a correct description of technology by their third year. Students had positive attitudes toward engineering, however many did not recognize some of the activities as engineering, attributing them to science instead. Overall, students were not interested in pursuing engineering as a primary career option though they enjoyed the in-class engineering activities. Students&rsquo; conceptions of engineers and engineering evolved from na&iuml;ve representations including mechanics and laborers to designers during the study. The patterns and rates of change differed between students; some quickly understood engineering as design and retained this understanding, while others slowly or partially developed an understanding of engineering as design.</p><p> The findings of this study have implications for practice and future research. Educators need to be prepared for strongly-held misconceptions regarding engineering and technology and be explicit when presenting engineering, especially when it is presented in a science context. Elementary students are able to understand engineering as design, however not all students fully grasped this concept. Future research is needed to explore how students understand technology, how elementary students understand design at their developmental level, and what long-term impact a foundation of engineering in elementary grades provides. </p>

<p> The ability to solve problems in creative and innovative ways is more critical than ever in today&rsquo;s rapidly-changing society. To support these demands, the educational curricula in the U.S. and other countries adopted engineering design as a learning platform to promote students&rsquo; creativity, communication and design skills, and innovative problem-solving abilities. When using engineering design, many educators use a variety of engineering design process models. However, little is known about the problem-solving processes in terms of design cognition. Therefore, in this study, the researcher examined the problem-solving patterns of students who engage in engineering design using a cognitive pattern approach. </p><p> This study was conducted as part of the NSF-funded Science Learning through Engineering Design (SLED) project for elementary science students&rsquo; grades three to six. The researcher adopted the sequential analysis method to identify students' problem-solving patterns. Sequential analysis is a statistical research method to detect behavioral or psychological patterns by analyzing repeated cognitive events. The researcher sampled a total of 48 Concurrent Think-Aloud (CTA)sessions to examine the statistical significance of the sequential analysis. Two coders independently conducted data coding using Halfin&rsquo;s codes and confirmed a high range of inter-rater reliability with 97.22 % overall agreements and .86 Kappa coefficients. </p><p> The first research question aimed to identify the common cognitive strategies used by elementary science students in engineering design. The researchers pooled 48 CTA sessions to investigate the common cognitive strategies. The results indicated that the students largely concentrated on idea generation (DE) and sketching (MO) while less emphasized on questioning (QH), predicting (PR), managing (MA), and analyzing (AN). Moreover, the researcher confirmed that the upper level graders showed higher frequencies of cognitive strategies than lower graders. </p><p> The second research question aimed to investigate the common problem-solving sequential patterns of the engineering design process. After pooling the 48 CTA sessions, the researcher analyzed the statistical significances of two-event sequential patterns using GSEQ software. The statistical analysis yielded 14 significant two-event sequential patterns at the right-tailed 0.05 level and two-sided z distribution. Using the significant sequential patterns, the researcher built a pattern-based design process model. The model illustrates various iterations between the problem and solution strategies. The iterations in the problem strategies showed recursive cycles between defining the problem, analyzing, and managing. The solution focused iterations often began with questioning and proceeded to designing and modeling or designing and predicting. Moreover, the pattern model shows that managing and questioning played a key role in bridging problem and solution strategies. </p><p> The third research question was to identify how the cognitive strategies vary by design tasks. The researcher compared eight engineering design tasks used in the SLED project and confirmed that the structure of design problems was associated with the students&rsquo; problem-solving strategies. The results of data analysis showed that the participant students commonly emphasized on <i>Designing</i> and <i>Modeling</i> strategies. However, the researcher found that the modeling-driven design tasks required accurate mechanical designing lead students&rsquo; high concentrations on the <i> Modeling</i> strategy. </p><p> The last research question was to identify the differences of cognitive problem-solving patterns by design tasks. The study analyzed eight engineering design tasks and each task pooled six CTA sessions. The results confirmed that higher graders&rsquo; design tasks showed more complicated design pathways than younger graders&rsquo; design tasks. Additionally, the researcher found that each design task yielded distinct problem-solving pattern models. </p><p> Based on these results, the researcher suggested that engineering and technology educators need to highlight the multiple pathways of the engineering design process. The results showed many alternative problem-solving pathways rather than the standardized process models. The researcher also proposed that when adopting an engineering design approach in elementary curriculum, the program developers need to align its design procedure with learners&rsquo; sequential patterns of the design process. Engineering design problems provide rich opportunities to develop the cognitive abilities of young students. Additionally, the researcher encourages engineering and technology education programs to adopt multiple design process models aligned with the corresponding design problem types.</p><p>