Systematic review of research in p-12 engineering education from 2000–2015

Abstract

Nations throughout the world have recognized the importance of having a Science, Technology, Engineering, andMathematics (STEM) competent workforce in today’s highly competitive and technical economy. As such, the past fifteenyears have seen a sharp rise in introducing pre-college (P-12) students to engineering and engaging them in learningengineering principles. Policy decisions to include engineering in national curriculum and standards have not beeninformed by as rich a body of research as subjects such as mathematics and science; however, research on P-12 engineeringeducation is on the rise. This paper presents a systematic review of the engineering education research in P-12 published injournals from 2000–2015. A systematic review follows a set of replicable, detailed procedures that describe how the articleswere selected, reviewed, and analysed. The results of this review included 218 peer-reviewed journal articles. The paperdetails the kinds of research and research questions these papers focused on, and synthesizes and discusses findings ofacross different topics, and proposes research topics ripe for further work.