Resumen de High-school course on engineering design: enhancementof students’ motivation and development of systems thinking skills
A unique course named ‘‘Introduction to Engineering Design’’ has been recently developed and implemented at theTechnion—Israel Institute of Technology. The course allows top 12th grade students who are majoring in science andengineeringto experienceengineering design.At the end of the course, the studentsplan and implement—on a team basis—a real-time control system for an electric motor. The course is intended to increase its graduates’ motivation in science andengineering, develop their systems thinking skills and train them in teamwork, as such skills will assist them in their futureengineering work. The study described in this paper examined—through quantitative and qualitative tools—to whatdegree the course’s first two objectives had been attained. Thirty-two students participated in the study and its findingsindicate an improvement in the students’ intrinsic motivation to study science and engineering (medium effect size) and intheir systems thinking skills (large effect size).
