Hester 2007; www.eie.org/), more research-based projects
are needed. Compared to the proliferation of research
outcomes for the upper secondary grades and
college years, those for the younger grades appear limited.
This could be due partly to the view that design
processes are too complex for the younger grades, yet
existing research has shown that young children have an
emerging capacity to undertake simple design work such
as imagining, planning, constructing, and evaluating (e.g.,
Bagiati and Evangelou 2015; Cunningham and Hester
2007; Dorie et al.'s 2014; Lachapelle and Cunningham
2014; Roth 1995; Watkins et al. 2014).
Given that the bulk of the research has targeted older
learners, there is the need for an engineering design
framework that also takes into account the younger
grades. Drawing on Dorie et al.'s (2014) work in identifying
design thinking in young children, as well as other research
(e.g., Moore et al. 2014; Watkins et al. 2014), we
developed a framework of engineering design processes
for this study, as shown in Fig. 1.
The processes displayed in the framework reflect the
multifaceted nature of a design approach. We consider
the processes as inherently iterative (Dorst and Cross
2001; Lawson 2006; Watkins et al. 2014), such as idea
generation frequently requiring revisiting problem scoping.
As indicated in Fig. 1, we consider the application of
STEM content knowledge during the design processes
to be a key component of students’ learning in solving
engineering-based problems.
The framework served as a reference point in developing
our activities and facilitated our identification and analysis
of the students’ developments, especially with respect
to their group and class discussions. As Dorie et al. (2014)
stressed, the simplified versions of engineering design that
appear in programs such as Engineering is Elementary