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Exploring non-dominant youths’ engineering identity through productive struggle in a making summer program

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Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how youth’s engineering identity has changed in the process of productive struggle in Making activities in the Midwestern U.S in a summer program. The researchers conducted focus-group interviews, and also administered an Engineering Identity survey as well as the Draw an Engineer Test to the students at two time points (pre/post). Additionally, the researchers observed the level of youths’ interaction by video-recording each session, conducted debriefing sessions, and examined youth artifacts. The findings revealed two themes. The first theme is that the boys and girls who were engaged in the process of productive struggle showed changes in their identity with engineering. The second theme is that the boys and girls who weren’t fully engaged in the process of productive struggle (i.e., demonstrated unproductive struggle) showed little or no change in their identity with engineering. This study showed that regardless of whether the students went through the process of productive struggle or not, they developed neutral or positive attitudes toward engineering. This finding also added to the existing literature on that productive struggle in Making activities has potential to enhance these youth’ learning of engineering knowledge and engineering tools.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, PSH, upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Rockford Public School District in Illinois under Grant R2202502. The author would also like to thank Sharif Shahadat, Aniqa Tahsin, Cassandra Sendra, and Jacob Martinez for their assistance in the program development.

Funding

This work was supported by  Rockford Public School District (Grant no.: R2202502).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Technology, Research, and Assessment, Northern Illinois University, Gabel Hall 101C, DeKalb, IL, USA

    Pi-Sui Hsu

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Northern Illinois University, Engineering Building 104, DeKalb, IL, USA

    Eric Monsu Lee

  3. Department of Educational Technology, Research, and Assessment, Northern Illinois University, Gabel 204C, DeKalb, IL, USA

    Thomas J. Smith

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  1. Pi-Sui Hsu
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Correspondence to Pi-Sui Hsu.

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Appendix 1

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Table 3 Draw an engineer test codebook
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Hsu, PS., Lee, E.M. & Smith, T.J. Exploring non-dominant youths’ engineering identity through productive struggle in a making summer program. Education Tech Research Dev 72, 83–107 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-023-10299-w

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