Capturing the Design Thinking of Young Children Interacting with a Parent

Building towers out of blocks, taking things apart and figuring how things work are a part of childhood and have been considered to be important precursors to engineering thinking. However, there is not yet consensus on what engineering thinking looks like for young children. Is engineering too difficult for young children to understand? Can young children engage in design and if so, what does that look like? How can we differentiate “design” activity that children engage in from normal everyday play? Several design models have taken into account the developmental stages of young children, but they are not always based on empirical evidence of children’s actual design activities. In this paper, we describe a framework for identifying design thinking activities that children might engage in. This framework is based on existing models for engineering design for young children, existing literature on adults’ design thinking behavior as well as empirical evidence from our own research on 4-11 year old children’s engagement in design activities.