Role of Engagement in Predicting Sixth-grade Students’ Performance in an Integrated STEM Life Sciences Unit
- Conference
- Location
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Virtual On line
- Publication Date
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June 22, 2020
- Start Date
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June 22, 2020
- End Date
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June 26, 2021
- Conference Session
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Pre-college Engineering Education Division Technical Session 17
- Tagged Division
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Pre-College Engineering Education
- Page Count
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15
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--35168
- Permanent URL
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https://strategy.asee.org/35168
- Download Count
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413
Paper Authors
Saira Anwar
Purdue University, West Lafayette
orcid.org/0000-0001-6947-3226
Saira Anwar is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Engineering Education, Purdue University. Her primary research focuses on studying the unique contribution of different instructional strategies on students’ learning and motivation in computing courses. Further, she is interested in designing interventions that help in understanding conceptually hard concepts in STEM courses especially programming and software engineering courses. Prior to Purdue University, Saira worked as Assistant Professor in Computer Science Department at Forman Christian College (A Chartered University) at Pakistan for eight years and was recognized for outstanding teaching with the year 2013 teaching award. Saira was also the recipient of the "President of Pakistan Merit and Talent Scholarship" for her undergraduate studies. Saira is also a recipient of school – level outstanding researcher award for the year 2020 by the School of Engineering Education, Purdue University.
Muhsin Menekse Purdue University, West Lafayette
Muhsin Menekse is an assistant professor at Purdue University with a joint appointment in the School of Engineering Education and the Department of Curriculum & Instruction. Dr. Menekse’s primary research investigates how classroom activities affect conceptual understanding in engineering and science for all students. His second research focus is on verbal interactions that can enhance productive discussions in collaborative learning settings. And his third research focus is on metacognition and its implications for learning. Much of this research focuses on learning processes in classroom settings. Dr. Menekse is the recipient of the 2014 William Elgin Wickenden Award by the American Society for Engineering Education.
Siddika Selcen Guzey Purdue University, West Lafayette
Dr. Guzey is an associate professor of science education at Purdue University. Her research and teaching focus on integrated STEM Education.
Valarie L. Bogan Purdue University, West Lafayette
Valarie Lee Bogan is a doctoral student at Purdue University. Ms. Bogan conducted research on student interest and achievement during a unit that integrated engineering and life science. She intends to continue this research by investigating the teacher talk which takes place during the unit.
Marla Jane Glover Purdue University, West Lafayette
Marla Glover is a retired high school mathematics and physics teacher currently working on a PhD in Physics Education at Purdue University. Her research interests lie in the area of teacher professional development, classroom discourse, and the use of science discoveries in the classroom for inquiry and engagement. Mrs. Glover has been recognized as a Distinguished Alumni of the College of Science at Purdue University (2008) and Physics Teacher of the Year by Indiana Section of American Association of Physics Teachers (2007) for her work in K-12 education. She participates in QuarkNet as a Large Hadron Collider Fellow and Purdue Center lead teacher.
Utkuhan Genc Purdue University, West Lafayette
Utkuhan Genc is a Junior at the school of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University. He has an incredible passion for solving cross-cultural problems using data-driven analytical thinking and intercultural communication skills. He is also pursuing a Statistics minor to further expand his data analytics and visualization skills. Education and healthcare are the two main career focus interests for Utkuhan and he wishes to use data-driven optimization solutions to improve the lives of others.
Lynn A. Bryan Purdue University, West Lafayette
Lynn A. Bryan is a Professor and Director of the Center for Advancing the Teaching and Learning of STEM (CATALYST) at Purdue University. She holds a joint appointment in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and the Department of Physics and Astronomy. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her Ph.D. in Science Education from Purdue University. Her research focuses on teachers’ development of knowledge and skills for teaching in instructionally innovative settings involving novel curriculum reform and technology enhanced environments.
Abstract
Prior Literature has evidence that students’ engagement plays a vital role in developing their interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics) courses, their performance, and their selection of college majors and careers. One way of achieving this engagement is through the active involvement of students in science courses at an early age and school life. Literature shows that students’ engagement and learning can be improved by introducing meaningful and conceptually driven curriculum. Considering the role of active engagement in science classes as a critical factor to students’ performance, we designed a life sciences curriculum unit, and associated assessment for 6th-grade students. We developed curriculum materials, which integrated engineering design principles in an existing unit of the life sciences curriculum. We introduced the curriculum unit through 11 teachers in eight middle schools across the Midwest. We collected the data of students’ pre-engagement (before the implementation of the curriculum unit) and performance in the curriculum unit (based on an associated assessment) from 915 6th grade students. To collect students’ engagement, we used the modified multidimensional engagement instrument, “The Math and Science Engagement Scales” [1]. The instrument has four dimensions, which are behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and social. The assessment of the curriculum unit was done in a pre and post manner. In this study, we specifically studied the role of students’ pre-engagement in predicting students' performance in the curriculum unit while accounting for students’ prior performance. We used multiple regression analysis to explore the relationship between each dimension of students’ engagement and performance. The results indicated that students’ pre-assessment, behavioral engagement, and social engagement are the significant predictors of their performance in the post-assessment. The full paper will discuss these results in light of the integrated STEM approach and previous literature evidence. Further, we will discuss the limitations and implications of the study and will provide future directions for research. References [1] M.-T. Wang, J. A. Fredricks, F. Ye, T. L. Hofkens, and J. S. Linn, “The Math and Science Engagement Scales: Scale development, validation, and psychometric properties,” Learn. Instr., vol. 43, pp. 16–26, 2016.
Anwar, S., & Menekse, M., & Guzey, S. S., & Bogan, V. L., & Glover, M. J., & Genc, U., & Bryan, L. A. (2020, June), Role of Engagement in Predicting Sixth-grade Students’ Performance in an Integrated STEM Life Sciences Unit Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--35168
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