Examining Kindergarten Children’s Testing and Optimising in the Context of a Gear Engineering Task

Introducing kindergarten children to the engineering design process (EDP) is an important objective of early STEM education. Studies indicate that often miss crucial steps testing and optimising during EDP do not persist in making solutions better. The present study explores how children’s goal awareness, self-evaluation ability, domain-specific content knowledge, spatial skills intelligence relate their persistence, behaviour solution quality. In a standardized procedure, 41 (4 7 years) Germany worked on task domain gears. was videotaped, optimising, quality, self-evaluation, persistence were rated with coding scheme interviewer questions. Domain-specific mental rotation ability figural reasoning measured tests. Correlational analyses indicated awareness positively related However, most required support by retrieve specifications. Moreover, negatively persistence. Most satisfied first solution, even when it did meet requirements. Our findings emphasize role teachers helping tackle challenges EDP.