Gradient

Partnership with the Science Museum of Minnesota

Research Questions:

• What are the different ways that adults interact with their children while engaging in informal engineering learning experiences?
• What gender differences exist in the way adult females and males interact with their female children during these experiences?
• How are gender differences affected when learning environments are infused with connections to personal and societal issues (context)?

Activity and Sample:
Three different informal engineering learning environments
Parents with children aged 3-11
Parents and children engage in the engineering design process and use engineering vocabulary

Frameworks and Instruments:
Islands of Expertise framework,  Adult-Child Interaction Inventory, Selinda Model of Visitor Research