Engineering Everywhere Evaluation

An EPSRC funded project in collaboration with the Centre for Science Education at Sheffield Hallam University; the University of Glasgow and 4Science.

Engineering Everywhere consists of a suite of resources, including classroom activities and videos on a DVD, to support the teaching of physical science with reference to engineering, in an effort to enhance young people’s interest in engineering and science related careers.

Preconceived perceptions and poor understanding of engineers and engineering have led to a poor uptake of engineering courses by school leavers. The DVD introduces relevant engineering ideas and concepts to form an integral part of the assessed science curriculum.

We performed a rigorous and fully-embedded formative evaluation of ‘Engineering Everywhere’ to inform development of the resource. We ran a series of iterative focus group sessions over the course of two years with our ‘standing panels’ of year 10-12 students. We probed the students for their values, opinions and regular activities, as well as testing resources in various stages of development. Our feedback was integrated into the development of the project from the outset.

We later performed a summative evaluation of the project, using a combination of timed, structured observations; informal interviews; follow up teacher interviews and questionnaires.