Examining Children’s Engineering Practices During an Engineering Activity in a Designed Learning Setting: A Focus on Troubleshooting (Fundamental)

Children spend most of their time in out-of-school settings. As a result, informal learning settings can play a significant role in children’s learning development. Museums and science centers are informal settings that are intentionally designed to promote learning and interest development. Studies show that these settings are where children begin to develop competencies, skills, knowledge and problem-solving processes that support participation in STEM-related careers. For example, many engineering exhibits have been designed for children to promote their engineering skills and practices as well as their understanding of engineering careers. One engineering practice is troubleshooting; troubleshooting is a practice used in many aspects of engineering work, including design, analysis, and programming. We situate this study in the engineering design literature as the task that our participants engaged in was an engineering design task. In this study, we examined ways young women engaged in design-based troubleshooting and compared them with what previous studies showed about the ways informed and beginning engineers troubleshoot their designs. To do so, we asked 7-11 years old girls with their caregivers to design a pneumatic ball run using pneumatic pistons in thirty minutes. The video data of four cases were then analyzed. Design-based troubleshooting was observed very often due to the immediate feedback they received (i.e., falling the ball means a problem). Our findings suggest that children can engage in some aspects of troubleshooting the same way as informed designers.