Tinkering With Testing: Understanding How Museum Program Design Advances Engineering Learning Opportunities for Children

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Maria Marcus¹  Diana I. Acosta²  Pirko Tõugu²  David H. Uttal⁴  Catherine A. Haden² 

[1] Department of Psychology, Roosevelt University, United States;Department of Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, United States;Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu;Department of Psychology, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University, United States

关键词: parent-child interactions;    engineering practices;    reflection;    learning;    museums;    informal education;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2021.689425

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Using a design-based research approach, we studied ways to advance opportunities for children and families to engage in engineering design practices in an informal educational setting. 213 families with 5–11-year-old children were observed as they visited a tinkering exhibit at a children’s museum during one of three iterations of a program posing an engineering design challenge. Children’s narrative reflections about their experience were recorded immediately after tinkering. Across iterations of the program, changes to the exhibit design and facilitation provided by museum staff corresponded to increased families’ engagement in key engineering practices. In the latter two cycles of the program, families engaged in the most testing, and in turn, redesigning. Further, in the latter cycles, the more children engaged in testing and retesting during tinkering, the more their narratives contained engineering-related content. The results advance understanding and the evidence base for educational practices that can promote engineering learning opportunities for children.

【 授权许可】

CC BY