Work in progress: Analysis of change in engineering construct knowledge

Interview transcripts from students (grades 2-4) were examined to measure change in understanding of engineering constructs using a coding scheme that is in development. The participants were students of teachers from a large, urban school-district that participated in two summer teacher professional development (TPD) engineering education academies and received continued support from a university center devoted to P-12 engineering education. To analyze the interviews, the overarching themes were broken into eight constructs that were points of focus during the TPD. Sample results show change in all mean scores. The inter-coder reliability for this iteration of scheme development was 91.3%. Scored level of understanding of the constructs (on a scale of 0-3) produced 75% agreement. The coding scheme continues to be refined in an effort to provide a form of evaluation of TPD and teacher effectiveness that identifies weaknesses in curriculum design and implementation.