Essential Question and Answer #2

STEM Literacy:  How does the incorporation of engineering concepts into science classrooms affect students' achievement?



"The results of this study suggest that a systems design approach for teaching science concepts has superior performance in terms of knowledge gain achievements, engagement, and retention when compared with a guided inquiry approach." (80) This statement furthers the idea that a hands-on, engineering, inquiry-based approach to teaching is beneficial for students in science classrooms.  It is easy to say that an inquiry-based approach is good for students' learning.  However, the study says that the type of inquiry-based approach matters, too.  Students taking full responsibility for science and engineering concepts is the goal.


As teachers start to implement engineering concepts into the classroom, it can be difficult to find the correct balance between teacher-centered and student-centered teaching.  While studies show that the student-centered approach is beneficial, it can be intimidating for the teacher who likes to have the feeling of control over the classroom.  And, it can tough to redesign lessons to put the responsibility on students.  So, what ends up happening is, there is a kind of pseudo-inquiry teaching that takes place.  While this can be an improvement to the traditional classroom, the authors of the study say that taking it even further can benefit students even more.


When students were given more choice, responsibility, and independence in the design and implementation of the entire process, learning increased greatly as compared to a situation where teachers have more control over the inquiry process.  Students own the problem more, have more purpose for learning, and grasp the concepts better in the end.  They analyze a problem, make decisions about how to solve the problem, design the process and the solution, test it, analyze it, and draw conclusions.  This gives students the full spectrum of science and engineering literacy.  


Additionally, the benefits for African America students is even greater.  It causes one to speculate that a more traditional classroom is only designed for certain students to succeed, where a classroom using the "systems design" approach may benefit all students more uniformly.


Mehalik, M. M., Doppelt, Y., Schunn, C. D. (2008). Middle-school science through design-based learning versus scripted inquiry: Better overall science concept learning and equity gap reduction. Journal of Engineering Education, 97(1), 71-85.