Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011 - rees2009

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to explain learning and understanding of engineering in K- 12. The broader goal is to
contribute to a discussion on the conceptual basis of engineering.
Models of Conceptual Change
Models of conceptual change can be differentiated by the answers they provide to several
key questions: (1) How is change happening? Models of conceptual change tend to take
either a revolutionary approach to conceptual change where change is seen as happening
extremely quickly in response to anomalous data or cognitive dissonance, or an
evolutionary approach where change is seen as something that happens gradually over
time (Vosniadou, 2008). (2) What is changing? The literature distinguishes between
granular and individual concepts to entire systems of concepts, so called mental models
(diSessa & Sherrin, 1998). (3) How stable are conceptual understandings?
Different models either argue that students carry a stable understanding, which expands
or will be revised over time or argue that conceptual understanding is the ad-hoc
assembly of fragmented concepts dependent on the given context (Özdemir & Clark,
2007). (4) How do people react to data which contradict or challenge their conceptual
understanding? The literature distinguishes between ignoring anomalous data, rejection,
domain exclusion, abeyance, reinterpretation, peripheral change, assimilation and theory
change (Chinn & Brewer, 1993). Affective variables like motivations and engagement can
also influence how students will react to attempts to modify their conceptual
understandings.
To assess how applicable existing frameworks of conceptual change are for the context of
K-12, this paper maps the conceptual space of engineering within the larger science, math
and technology concepts. To exist in a physical world requires an intuitive understanding
of physics with accompanying naïve theories; engineering does not typically make the
same demands as one can navigate the engineered world without generating theories
about how it came to be. Although numerous stereotypes exist related to the nature and
practice of engineering, the general lack of strongly grounded alternative conceptions or
misconceptions about engineering and its processes limit the applicability of
revolutionary models of conceptual change to K-12 engineering education. Evolutionary
models, in particular diSessa’s Knowledge-in-Pieces model (diSessa, 1993) and both Script
theory (Rumelhart, 1980) and Schema theory (Schank & Abelson, 1975), show much
greater potential for explaining engineering thinking at the K-12 level. Rather than
conceptualizing engineering as a specific knowledge domain, these theories can help to
understand engineering as a meta-organizer, helping students to build and reorder
connections among existing scientific and mathematic concepts, and strengthening
conceptions in this domain. Implications for the introducing of engineering in K-12 will be
described in the paper.
How is change happening?
Research on conceptual change originated in the domain of science guided by Thomas
Kuhn’s (1996) seminal work, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, originally published
in 1962. Kuhn theorized that most science consisted of normal science which contributed
Proceedings of Research in Engineering Education Symposium 2011
Madrid, 4 th - 7 th October 2011