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

Area of Science:

• STEM Education
• Informal Learning Environments
• Engineering Design Processes

Background:

• Informal educational settings, like children's museums, offer unique opportunities for families to engage in STEM learning.
• There is a need to understand how to best facilitate engineering design practices for young children and their families in these environments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how to enhance family engagement in engineering design practices within a children's museum setting.
• To explore the impact of iterative exhibit design and facilitation on children's engineering learning.

Main Methods:

• A design-based research approach was used, observing 213 families with children aged 5-11 in a tinkering exhibit.
• The study involved three program iterations with modifications to exhibit design and staff facilitation.
• Children's narrative reflections were collected post-tinkering to assess learning outcomes.

Main Results:

• Iterative changes to exhibit design and facilitation led to increased family engagement in engineering practices.
• Families in later program iterations showed higher levels of testing and redesigning.
• Greater child engagement in testing correlated with more engineering-related content in their narratives.

Conclusions:

• Museum exhibits and facilitation strategies can be effectively designed to promote engineering design practices for families.
• Encouraging iterative testing and redesigning in informal settings supports children's engineering learning.
• This research provides an evidence base for developing effective informal STEM education programs.