Engineering Design and Conceptual Change in Science: Addressing thermal energy and heat transfer in eighth grade

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of engineering design classroom activities on middle‐school students’ conceptions of heat transfer and thermal energy. One eighth‐grade physical science teacher and the students in three of her classes participated in this mixed‐methods investigation. One class served as the control receiving the teacher’s typical instruction. Students in a second class had the same learning objectives, but were taught science through an engineering design curriculum that included demonstrations targeting specific alternative conceptions about heat transfer and thermal energy. A third class also used the engineering design curriculum, but students experienced typical demonstrations instead of targeted ones. Conceptual understandings of heat transfer and thermal energy and attitudes towards engineering were assessed prior to and after the interventions through interviews, observations, artefact analysis, a multiple choice assessment, and a Likert scale assessment. Results indicated that the engineering design curriculum with targeted demonstrations was significantly more effective in eliciting desired conceptual change than the typical instruction and also significantly more effective than the engineering curriculum without targeted demonstrations. Implications from this study can inform how teachers should be prepared to use engineering design activities in science classrooms for conceptual change.