Investigation of Elementary-School Students' Perception of Engineering using Drawing Analysis

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education has become a popular academic model in recent years. Engineering education has been emphasized in the Next Generation of Science Standards (NGSS). A lack of career guidance has become a common problem in engineering education. Hence, it is pertinent to investigate how students understand the career in engineering so that their interests and abilities can be developed strategically. In this study, a drawing analysis method was adopted to investigate students' perceptions of engineering in an elementary school in Beijing. A Draw an Engineer Test (DAET) was conducted to 512 students from 15 classes in grades two to six. Our findings reveal that many students held a narrow view of a career in engineering. For example, younger students typically believed that engineers work in construction sites, whereas older students typically regarded engineers as designers or technicians. There were significant differences in the perception of engineering among students in different grades and different gender a. We also found that experiences in life and social networks, but not teaching in school, were most frequently used channels for students to understand engineering.