What can a child's experiences tell us about engineering education activities?

Abstract

This paper presents the emergent findings from a current PhD study exploring children's experiences of 'active' engineering education. The study aims to develop a deeper understanding of the outcomes of participation in such activities for children in rural schools, and collects data from the first person perspective to enable this. The literature suggests that career aspirations may be formed by children as young as 8 years, however current debate largely overlooks the experiences of children at this age. The study presented takes a qualitative methodological stance and, adopting an approach based upon grounded theory, uses observations and semi-structured interview data to analyse participation in an engineering activity. The emergent findings suggest that many sources inform a child's knowledge of engineering, contributing to their view of engineering; it is a child's a priori perceptions of engineering and engineers which ultimately 'frames' how they experience organised engineering education activities. Simply, a child's view of their engineering suitability is influenced by a range of factors prior to formal engineering education being introduced. Formal engineering education activities have a role, but often these simply reinforce previously held beliefs. The implications of this finding are of great importance for the field.