Preservice Teachers’ Conceptualizations of Engineers and Engineering: Seeking Meanings From K-12 Learning Experiences

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 2:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Teacher Perspectives on and Experiences in Science Education (Table 4)

Abstract

This study investigated female pre-service elementary teachers’ (PSETs) (N = 138) conceptions of engineers and engineering with the focus on their K-12 education settings (rural, suburban, and urban contexts). Analysis of PSETs’ drawings of engineers and narratives of drawings indicated a diversity of unique, similar, and different conceptions of engineers and engineering across context, and thus, illuminated the nature of the relationship between K-12 education settings and participants’ prior knowledge of engineers and engineering. The diversity expressed by the uniqueness, similarities, and differences across does not normalize one context over the other or relegate any one context to a position of deficit and thus advertently and/or inadvertently make harmful connections between K-12 education settings and conceptions of engineers and engineering.

Authors

• Karthigeyan Subramaniam, University of North Texas

• Christopher S. Long, University of North Texas

• Mila Rosa Librea Carden, University of North Texas