A better understanding of engineering and its relation to society is critical for all Americans, even those who do not plan to go into engineering. The method of doing engineering is design and analysis. This project investigates how high school students' understanding about design thinking compares to that of experienced practitioners and whether participation in a multiyear sequence of courses focused on engineering correlates with changes in design thinking. The project builds upon the Standards for Technological Literacy and courses developed at the University of Colorado and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The research is done with forty students in neighboring high schools each working on the problem of designing a playground under realistic constraints. Design thinking is operationalized into a series of variables including time allocation across the elements in a design process, transitions between elements of the design process, generation of alternative solutions, prioritization of design activities and congruence between prioritization and practical application. This study replicates a similar study with college engineering students. Graduate students pilot the data collection and analysis procedures and then observe and interview the high school students. The training of the graduate students during piloting and their ability to gather and analyze data is evaluated. The results are published in research and practitioner journals.
