Date of Award:

5-2014

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Applied Sciences, Technology, and Education

Committee Chair(s)

Edward Reeve

Committee

Edward Reeve

Committee

Gary Stewardson

Committee

Kimberly Lott

Abstract

Education is always changing and science education is no exception, with many influential publications passing through science education over the years. The latest wave in science standards is called the Next Generation Science Standards. The Next Generation Science Standards are anticipated to have a significant effect on state science standards around the entire country. One thing about these new standards is very different from all previous science standards—they include the principle of engineering design in them.

Asking science teachers to teach engineering design is asking them to teach a principle for which their teaching licensure would not have formally prepared them. Consequently, the hypothesis of this study was that the feeling of preparedness to teach engineering design would be low among public secondary education Utah science teachers. This study shows that hypothesis to be correct: Utah science teachers do not feel prepared to teach engineering design. The feelings of teacher preparedness can be improved through professional development and inclusion of engineering design into science teacher education programs. It should be infused into these arenas now that teachers have indicated their low feelings of preparedness. More teacher preparation should be sought because an unprepared teacher will not prepare students as well as a prepared teacher. And, creating prepared students is the goal of the education system.

Checksum

87bc629fea5a640a5930eb37e3ec671d

Comments

Alternate Title is "A Survey of Utah's Public Secondary Education Science Teachers to Determine Their Feelings of Preparedness to Teach Engineering Design"

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