The Enrichment Experiences in Engineering (E3)

Since 2002, the Enrichment Experiences in Engineering (E 3 ) summer teacher program has provided engineering research opportunities to Texas public high school teachers. Through funding by the National Science Foundation’s Research Experiences for Teachers (RET) program, E 3 has hosted a total of 150 teachers. Most of the teachers have come from schools with high minority student populations (average 83% Hispanic and/or African American; average 69% economically-disadvantaged). Although the program has evolved over the years due to ongoing formative evaluation efforts, the E 3 program goal “to involve teachers in engineering research” has remained the same as have the three core objectives: (1) provide engineering research experiences and enhance understanding of the nature of engineering; (2) scaffold teacher development of inquiry-based engineering classroom activities; and (3) improve teacher (and indirectly their students) knowledge about careers in engineering. The E 3 program is designed to bring high school science and mathematics teachers to the Texas AM therefore the team investigated the apparent contradictions. Possible explanations included (a) pre-program survey response overestimation and concomitant response shift bias for several of the survey questions, and/or (b) teachers’ belief that something is true without a factual basis for that belief. Although there were several design approaches to consider, the E 3 team determined that the retrospective post-then-pre survey design was the best fit for the program and therefore restructured the affected questions for subsequent post-program surveys. As such, the revised surveys were administered to participants in the subsequent E 3 summer programs. Major survey findings indicated that the E 3 participants experienced substantial changes in the following areas: (1) improved understanding of the engineering discipline; (2) heightened awareness of the breadth of engineering careers; and (3) greater familiarity regarding important skills and attributes to be a successful engineer. As a “lessons learned” note to administrators of teacher research experience programs: When selecting an experimental design for participant surveys, program administrators should investigate the options, weigh the advantages and disadvantages, and then select the option that best fits the needs and constraints of their program.