Ninth-grade students' perceptions on the design-thinking mindset in the context of reverse engineering

Area of Science:

• STEM Education
• Engineering Pedagogy
• Cognitive Development

Background:

• Design thinking is crucial for STEM education and design-based learning.
• Current design-based learning primarily uses forward engineering, leaving the role of reverse engineering in nurturing design thinking unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of a reverse engineering project on ninth-grade students' design thinking.
• To explore students' perceptions of design thinking characteristics before and after engaging in reverse engineering.

Main Methods:

• A four-week reverse engineering project was implemented with 38 ninth-grade students.
• Likert scales measured six aspects of design thinking: comfort with uncertainty, human-centeredness, mindfulness, collaboration, learning by making, and creative confidence.
• Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics, including paired-samples t-tests and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests.

Main Results:

• Significant improvements were observed in human-centeredness (p=0.008) and creative confidence (p=0.043).
• Effect sizes for these improvements were 0.43 and 0.34, respectively.
• These findings suggest reverse engineering can positively influence specific design thinking attributes.

Conclusions:

• Reverse engineering demonstrates potential as a design-based learning strategy to foster students' design thinking.
• Instructional designs for reverse engineering should incorporate ambiguity and risk to mitigate design fixation.
• Further research can explore optimizing reverse engineering for comprehensive design thinking development.