Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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design, problem solving, critical thinking, and working with constraints. The interpretive
frameworks expressed by the students indicate that they are able to communicate about
many different facets of engineering, including the design process, the many different
types of engineers (who they are, what they produce, their role in society), the different
engineering activities completed in class, and different aspects of engineering.
When considering the process question, “How useful were context maps to detect
students' meaning associated with engineering?” we look to Tables 3 and 4. The context
maps, using the Contexts of Meaning coding system provided a tool for detecting and
interpreting students’ meaning associated with engineering. However, in order to gain a
more nuanced understanding of student meaning, a secondary coding system needed to be
developed and utilized in coding the responses. In his 1992 study, Bloom provided three
sub-codes that could be used for secondary coding: Categorizing, Elaborating/Storytelling,
and Associating/Inferring (see Tables 2 and 5). Adding these three codes to the
personal experiences, metaphors, misinformation, and emotions-values-aesthetics
categories provided a richer picture of student meaning and knowledge about
engineering.
Table 5: Secondary Coding Response Counts and Percentages
Table 5 provides detailed information about secondary codes that emerged from student context
maps.
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011