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Drawings: Implications to STEAM Education, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and
Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
Introduction
Educational approaches such as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and
STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts/Humanities, and Mathematics) have gained ground
worldwide (Marín-Marín et al., 2021). Countries such as The United States of America (NGSS, 2013),
Korea (KOFAC, 2012), and Spain (MEFP, 2022) have incorporated them into their curriculum. Such
educational approaches place interdisciplinarity as a crucial aspect of education, especially under the
claim that siloed disciplines cannot address complex matters, e.g. sustainability which encompasses
economic, environmental, and social spheres (Rodrigues-Silva and Álsina, 2023a; Guyotte, 2020).
Alongside interdisciplinarity, STEM or STEAM entails inserting into the precollege curriculum
engineering—a discipline generally absent at this level. In this vein, discourses that promote STEM or
STEAM mention the urge to increase students’ interest in pursuing technical careers such as engineering,
which would be highly required in a technological world (Perignat and Katz-Buonincontro, 2019). At the
same time, researchers defend precollege engineering to increase girls’ interest towards this career and,
therefore, tackle the sustainable development goal of reducing the existent gender gap in engineering
(Aurava and Meriläinen, 2022; Cabello et al., 2021; United Nations, 2015).
Conversely, practices involving precollege engineering might side effects engineering image if
pedagogical planning and management overlook stereotypical conceptions (Fleer, 2021). For example,
Fleer (2021) proposed a free play activity wherein preschool children were incentivised to imagine
themselves as engineers while building bridges. The authors witnessed that boys mainly occupied the
“engineering area”—a space with tools to design and construct the bridge—while girls avoided this area.
Consequently, this activity may have reinforced their conception of engineering as a male profession.
Contrary to simply incorporating engineering, Moore et al. (2014) presented a precollege engineering
education framework and remarked that developing students’ conceptions of engineers and engineering
is essential. They argue that an accurate idea of engineering prevents reinforcing stereotypical views and
Systematic Review About Students’ Conceptions of Engineering
Accessed Through Drawings: Implications to STEAM Education
Jefferson Rodrigues-Silva
1*
, Ángel Alsina
2
1
Department of mechanical engineering, Federal Institute of Minas Gerais (IFMG), Brazil, e-mail: jeffe.rodri@gmail.com
2
Department of subject-specic didactics, University of Girona (UdG), Spain, e-mail: angel.alsina@udg.edu
Abstract: We aim to review students’ conceptions of engineers and engineering accessed through their drawings.
Accordingly, we enrolled in a systematic review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
(PRISMA) protocols. For that, we established the Web of Science as the source of information. After applying eligibility criteria,
the search resulted in ten records. We observed that many reviewed studies enrolled in research designs which contained
comparisons of groups, cohorts (cross-age) or pre-post-tests. However, they generally overlooked appropriate statistical tests.
Overall, the studies evidenced that most students conceive engineers as males who work individually in manual activities and
outdoor environments. The major contribution of this study is providing an overview of the investigation of children’s conceptions
of engineering. Additionally, we call attention to the need for more research, teacher training, and carefully planned and executed
activities that enhance students’ conceptions of engineers and engineering instead of worsening stereotypes—especially
considering current curriculum proposals, such as STEAM education embracing engineering at precollege levels.
Keywords: Draw an Engineer Test, drawing, students, precollege engineering, STEM education, STEAM education.
Original scientic paper
Received: February, 15.2023.
Revised: May, 20.2023.
Accepted: May, 29.2023.
UDC:
159.955.2-057.87
10.23947/2334-8496-2023-11-2-199-211
© 2023 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
*
Corresponding author: jeffe.rodri@gmail.com
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Rodrigues-Silva, J., & Alsina, Á. (2023). Systematic Review About Students’ Conceptions Of Engineering Accessed Through
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Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
gives meaning to learning the following knowledge and abilities related to engineering.
Willing to access children’s conceptions of engineers, Knight and Cunningham (2004) proposed
the Draw an Engineer Test (DAET) as an instrument that to explore their ideas through drawings. This
instrument follows the theory of gurative thinking as the underpinning rationality of its analysis. According
to this theory, children’s symbolic expressions (signiers) represent personal systems of mental images
about objects (signieds) (Piaget and Inhelder, 1971). In this sense, interpreting the results obtained
through DAET is possible under the conception that children’s drawings may offer insights into their
mental images of engineering (Capobianco et al., 2011).
Researchers have applied this instrument in countries like the United States, China, and Turkey
(Capobianco et al., 2011; Diefes-Dux and Capobianco, 2011; Knight and Cunningham, 2004). Results
from those studies highlighted problems such as children’s misconceptions of engineering that might
prevent them from envisioning it as an intellectual activity. Additionally, from a very early age, children
already express gender bias toward engineering as a male career. Such an image likely averts some girls
from pursuing this profession.
In sum, countries gradually adopt educational approaches incorporating engineering at precollege
levels; studies identify children expressing misconceptions about engineering and gender bias, and
weakly structured activities are likely to worsen those misconceptions. This conguration conduces to two
research questions. First, how have students’ conceptions of engineers and engineering been investigated
through drawings? Furthermore, what are students’ conceptions of engineers and engineering?
Currently, no systematic review addressed studies exploring students’ engineering conceptions
through their drawings. In this sense, the literature lacks studies that provide an overview of this topic. Line
up to those interrogations and the identied gap in the literature. We aim to review students’ conceptions
of engineers and engineering accessed through their drawings.
Materials and Methods
Considering this research goal, we enrolled in a systematic literature review following the Preferred
Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) protocols. Accordingly, the
investigation process is informed to guarantee its rigour and reproducibility (Moher et al., 2015). It was
structured into the phases: 1) Search elements and Boolean logic, 2) Eligibility criteria, 3) Information
sources, 4) Data collection, and 5) Data analysis.
Search elements and Boolean logic
First, we identied engineer and engineering as central terms of the research goal. Then, the
words draw and drawing were acknowledged as appropriate terms to lter studies that applied drawings
to access people’s conceptions. Two additional words, conception and stereotype, were considered to
rene the search in order to prevent nding studies on engineering technical drawing. Given all that, the
Boolean logic was created: ENGINEER* and DRAW* and (CONCEPTION or STEREOTYPE). Moreover,
we established that the word engineer should be scanned in the title—given its centrality in this study—
and the other terms of the Boolean logic in the title, abstract, author, keywords, or keywords plus.
Eligibility criteria
In this second phase, we established the eligibility criteria applied in this review, as presented in
Table 1. First, we xed that the documents should be peer-reviewed because this evaluation indicates
some research quality. Following this, we established that the records could have the format of an
article or conference proceedings. We included documents published since 2004, which correspond to
when the DAET instrument was created by Knight and Cunningham (2004). Since we are interested in
students’ conceptions, we secure that the document was classied in the educational research area and
the population was centred on students. Finally, we included documents published in English because
it is considered a universal language in the current scientic community. Moreover, we were open to
considering Spanish and Portuguese documents to prot authors’ knowledge in those languages to
broaden the research scope. The exclusion criteria were essentially antonyms of the inclusion ones.
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Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
Table 1
Eligibility criteria
Information sources
In this third phase, we selected the Web of Science (WoS) index from Clarivate as the information
source because of its recognised rigour and importance in science, particularly in the educational eld.
Data collection
Once the Boolean logic, the eligibility criteria, and the source of information are established, we
nally move to the review’s fourth phase, which consists of collecting and treating data. A scan enrolled
on 30 October 2022 resulted in 74 records. We used the WoS platform to lter the type of document,
publication period, research area, and language. After that, we read the abstract and full texts to ensure
the documents included were correct—DAET instrument and focused on students.
At this point, we observed that three articles were non-eligible—Thomas et al. (2020, 2016) had to
be discarded because they were focused on students but developing a rubric and validating a modied
version of the DAET, and Diefes-Dux and Capobianco (2011) study because they presented a specic
analysis of data from another study which was already contemplated in the list of reviewed articles
(Capobianco et al., 2011). Eventually, as shown in Figure 1, the data collection process was conducted to
a nal list of ten documents—articles and conference proceedings.
Figure 1. Data collection process.
Data analysis
We used the Atlas-ti program to provide the word occurrence from those ten selected articles. For
this, we excluded numbers and set the threshold of 80 accounts. Then, we plotted the information in word
cloud format to visually analyse the accuracy of those documents concerning the Boolean logic and the
research goal.
During analysing data, we did several reads and comparisons between the documents. We
observed categories of information that could be organised into three blocks:
• General research features: methodology approach, sample size, design, intervention,
educational level, publication year and region;
• Data collection instrument and procedure details: the instruction for making the drawing,
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Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
the instructions and questions asking for a description of the drawing, application time, applicants, and
complementary interviews;
• Common results: students’ conception of gender (male or female), place of work (out-door or
indoor), activity (manual or intellectual), and work setting (individual or collective). Moreover, we addressed
the interventions, gender, and age comparisons.
For this last part regarding studies’ typical results, whenever necessary, we recalculated the
frequency percentages of the four variables— students’ conception of gender, place of work, activity, and
work setting— considering the total sample size of each study. Matusovich et al. (2021), for example,
represented the results of students’ opinions on engineering activities through a horizontal bar chart. In
this case, we had to estimate the values using the scale presented in the gure.
Moreover, we run one-sample proportion tests on Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS) program to verify whether the frequency differs statistically between the levels of each variable—
using a threshold of 5% of signicance. Furthermore, researchers were not always able to interpret,
for example, the gender portrayed in the drawings; children may not have pictured a human gure or
represented both. Therefore, we created an extra class for each variable to account for indiscernible
information from drawings.
Regarding the conception of engineers’ activities, we accounted as manual undertaking: x,
build, construct, repair, drive, make a single product (craft), and operate machines. Furthermore, as an
Intellectual undertaking, the activities: create, optimise, invent, design, supervise/observe, use math,
use science, use technology, solve problems, research, experiment, test, and teach. We clarify that
occasionally, engineers can be involved with all those activities, but engineering primarily deals with highly
complex issues that demand more cognitive abilities (Moore et al., 2014).
We did not further the review aspects evaluated by a few researchers, such as skin colour (Ergun
and Balcin, 2019; Fralick et al., 2009), smiling faces (Ata-Aktürk and Demircan, 2021a), and the presence
of engineers in students’ family (Capobianco et al., 2011).
Results
Now on, we present the review results. Beforehand, we highlight the scarcity of studies exploring
students’ conceptions of engineering since only ten documents were eligible. In Figure 2, a word cloud
demonstrates that the terms engineers, drawn, students, education, and conceptions are frequently
written in the reviewed documents. This result conrms a substantial relationship between the selected
manuscripts and our research goal. Additionally, we call attention to the words test, DAET, gender, design,
and STEM occurrence. Those elements will be further addressed in this review.
Figure 2. Word cloud of the reviewed documents.
Review of general research features
Table 2 summarises the rst block of information that explores general research features: author,
year of publication, region, educational level, sampling, sample (N), intervention, grouping, design, and
statistics. It is observable that authors contributed with only one record each, which indicates that no
researcher could be considered an exponent of the topic. Regarding geographic distribution, the United
States of America outstand as the country with more studies—six in total. Turkey has two studies, while
China and Mexico have only one each.
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Rodrigues-Silva, J., & Alsina, Á. (2023). Systematic Review About Students’ Conceptions Of Engineering Accessed Through
Drawings: Implications to STEAM Education, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and
Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
Table 2
General research features
Note: Cohort here is understood as a longitudinal-like design conceived through a cross-sectional collection of data,
which means participants responded only once, but they have similarities that permit inferring a temporal relationship.
Table 3
Data collection instrument and application procedure details
As presented in Figure 3, the reviewed documents are steadily distributed in time. Despite some gaps, since DAET’s
creation in 2004, there has been no production peak and a maximum of two papers published during the same year.
Figure 3. Time distribution of publications on the Web of Science of studies on students’ conceptions of engineering
through drawings.
Then addressing students’ educational level, most documents investigated elementary or middle schools. Ata-Aktürk
and Demircan (2021a) explored preschool students replacing the DAET written part with a short interview about the drawing
(different modications of this instrument will be seen later on). Studies on higher education were not frequent either. López et
al. (2013) addressed higher education to observe how incoming engineering students conceive their course.
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Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
Figure 4. Educational levels addressed in the reviewed articles.
All studies followed purposive sampling and a non-randomised selection method—strategies commonly used in
qualitative research. In this case, investigators select the participants from a particular context or reason (Lawson, Faul and
Verbist, 2019). However, studies have relatively large samples of qualitative research standards. Figure 5 shows the sample
size distribution: three studies have between 100 and 200 participants; four studies lay in a middle range of 350 to 450
participants, and the last three pieces of research had extensive samples with more than 700 participants each.
Figure 5. Sample size distribution of the reviewed articles.
Studies applied the DAET as their primary research data collection instrument. Consequently, they used similar
strategies to analyse data—basically inducing categories by contrasting the drawings and the explanations about it provided
by open-ended questions or complementary interviews. Nonetheless, researchers reached no consensus on whether this
conguration of inquiry has a qualitative, quantitative or mixed approach. The confusion may be because the information
source is qualitative, but subsequently, categories are created and treated as constructs with frequency quantication.
Ata-Aktürk and Demircan (2021a), for example, specied that their study had a phenomenography approach. They
presented a cross-sectional study, no comparison groups, and not aiming to evaluate an intervention. Coherently to a qualitative
approach, they focused on exploring the quality (phenomenon) of students’ conceptions of engineers and engineering. In
contrast, Capobianco et al. (2011) reported using qualitative data but, coherently to a (cross-age) cohort design, they had a
quantitative part and, therefore, applied statistical testing. Similarly, Rivale et al. (2020) also used statistical tests (ANOVA).
We clarify that here cohort is understood as a longitudinal-like design but through a cross-sectional data collection. It means
participants respond only once, but as they keep common characteristics (being students), they are related to each other
regarding the different grades, so we can infer a temporal change (Lawson, Faul and Verbist, 2019).
The remaining seven documents have at least one comparison condition: two groups, cohort design, intervention and
a pre-post design (results of those articles will be explored later on). Notwithstanding, they present only descriptive statistics,
and frequencies are directly compared without running hypothesis testing. Figure 6 shows the methodological panorama of the
reviewed articles. We highlighted that “two groups”, “cohort or pre-post design”, and “intervention” are comparison conditions
that should inherently be accompanied by hypothesis testing.
Figure 6. Methodological panorama of the reviewed articles.
Review of data collection instrument and procedure details
In the following paragraphs, we explore the second block of information concerning the data collection instruments
of the reviewed documents. As stated earlier, authors used the DAET as their primary research instrument, but with some
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Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
variations and adaptions (Table 3). Next, we address the DAET regarding the instruction for drawing, description of the drawing,
time of application, applicant, and complementary Interview.
Knight and Cunningham (2004, p. 3) created the DAET with the primary instruction, “Draw a picture of an engineer
at work.” After that, the authors repeated this instruction in their research. Following the same idea, López et al. (2013)
asked students to close their eyes, imagine an engineer at work, and then draw it. Differently, Chou and Chen (2017, p.
478) concentrated on engineers’ appearance. They wrote, “How do engineers look? Please, draw an image of an engineer”.
Similarly, Rivale et al. (2020, 22.552.1 to 22.552.12) used, “Draw a picture of what you think an engineer looks like”.
Additionally to DAET’s primary instruction, Knight and Cunningham (2004) included the open-ended question, “What
does an engineer do?” to help interpret students’ drawings regarding the engineering activity. Equally, all authors had those
auxiliary requests. However, while some of them kept the question about the general action of engineers (López et al., 2013;
Matusovich et al., 2021), other authors modied it to address what the portrayed engineer was doing in the drawing (Capobianco
et al., 2011; Carr and Diefes-Dux, 2012; Chou and Chen, 2017; Ergun and Balcin, 2019; Fralick et al., 2009). Additionally, three
studies demanded the participants to name their engineers—helpful information for gender interpretation—and to describe
the work environment (Chou and Chen, 2017; Ergun and Balcin, 2019; Knight and Cunningham (2004)). Any question directly
requests the gender and the working setting—whether the engineer works individually or collectively.
Rivale et al. (2020) required students to cite one thing invented by engineers before drawing. This approach will likely
have biased students to conceive engineers as inventors/designers.
In half of the reviewed studies, researchers counted on teachers to be the applicants of the DAET. Some authors
commented on how teachers were prepared to do it properly. For example, Capobianco et al. (2011, p. 310) remark that
“teachers were provided written directions describing the procedures for administering the drawing test”. Also related to the
application of the DAET, the average time designated to it was 25 minutes (SD 10 minutes).
Moreover, four studies mentioned an interview to clarify the drawings’ reasons. Among those interviews, we highlight
the work of Capobianco et al. (2011, p. 310), the sole document that reported directly addressing gender, “Is your engineer, boy
or girl?”. We also remark that Ata-Aktürk and Demircan (2021a) applied the Draw-and-tell technic—a quick (5 min) and informal
narrative about the drawing. They claimed this strategy was an age-appropriate way of working with preschool students who
were assumed illiterate and could feel uncomfortable with formal interviews.
The idiom is likely to inuence children’s image of engineering. For example, Chou and Chen (2017) consider that
students might conceive engineering as manual work because the word labourer in Chinese shares its initial character with
the word engineer. Similarly, Knight and Cunningham (2004) observed that some students’ answers indicated a vocabulary
problem in English that may have misconducted their conception of engineering. They explain that students probably related
engineering with the word engine and associated this profession with cars. For instance, one student wrote, “Engineer has the
word engine in it, so I guess they must work with engines”.
In this same vein, López et al. (2013) warn that the Spanish language places genders to nouns, so they included male
and female engineers (ingenieros y ingenieras) in the DAET instrument. However, explicitly naming male and female engineers
may have inuenced the children to consider both genders. Silva-hormazábal, Rodrigues-Silva and Alsina (2022) proposed
a STEAM activity of interdisciplinarity between engineering and mathematics using a Spanish version of the DAET. They
suggested writing the expression “draw a person that does engineering—dibuje una persona que hace ingeniería” because
“persona” is a gender-neutral term.
Review of common results
Next, we review the results of the articles. As stated in the methodology, we identied aspects commonly studied
between the documents, viz., students’ conception of engineers’ gender, place of work, activity, and work setting. Table 4
presents the frequency distribution of those aspects considering the total sample of each study—we bold the proportions
statistically different. We gathered individuals from all groups and cohorts and considered only the pre-test results.
Table 4
Typical results regarding students’ conception of engineers’ gender, place of work, activity, and work setting
Note: Multiple one-sample proportion tests show that frequencies of detectable levels of each category are statistically
different, considering a signicance threshold of 5%—highlighted in bold. Except for the gender distribution (male/female) in
the work of Knight and Cunningham (2004).
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Rodrigues-Silva, J., & Alsina, Á. (2023). Systematic Review About Students’ Conceptions Of Engineering Accessed Through
Drawings: Implications to STEAM Education, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and
Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
Engineers’ gender and engineering activity are the most studied domains, followed by the place
of work and work setting. We comment that Knight and Cunningham (2004) had an oddly high level of
indiscernible gender (75%). Those authors explained that about half of the drawings were “stick gures”,
which prevented discerning the representation of gender. Additionally, they explain that they observed an
unusually higher occurrence of drawings depicting female engineers because two female undergraduate
engineering students had worked with those students for a few months before the instrument application.
In this respect, we observed that researchers used stereotypical features associated with gender
to analyse the drawings. López et al. (2013) explained that they considered dress, skirt, long hair, painted
lips, and long eyelashes as female characteristics. Knight and Cunningham (2004) explained that they
regarded short hair, square shoulders, and necktie as male characteristics, while long hair was considered
a female trait. Researchers used questions to address gender so that such stereotypical analysis could be
avoided. For example, Capobianco et al. (2011, p. 310) used the open-ended question, “Is your engineer
a boy or a girl?” Differently, Fralick et al. (2009) demanded that the children give a name to their engineers
so that this information could help infer the gender.
Matusovich et al. (2021) plotted a bar chart which shows that students’ responses to an open-
ended question on what engineers do have a high frequency of intellectual tasks such as design, solving
problems, and using math and science. However, analysis associated with their drawings evidenced the
verbs building and xing and the nouns vehicle and tools, which are terms more closely related to manual
tasks. Similarly to other studies, blueprints had a much lower occurrence.
In the sequence, we present Figure 7, which shows the aggregated results to account for a mean
frequency distribution throughout the reviewed studies regarding students’ conception of engineers’
gender, place of work, activity, and work setting. Notably, students primarily conceive engineers as males
who work individually in manual activities and outdoor environments.
Figure 7. Aggregation results regarding students’ conception of engineers’ gender, place of work,
activity, and work setting.
Researchers observed that girls draw more female engineers than boys. However, both girls
and boys draw more male engineers in total (Chou and Chen, 2017; Knight and Cunningham, 2004).
Despite the difference in gender representation, girls and boys have similar conceptions of engineers and
engineering—activity, place of work and work setting (Chou and Chen, 2017).
Moreover, a more signicant proportion of students from lower grades represent engineers
incorrectly as other professions, such as doctors and bombers, while higher grades demonstrate more
accurate views of engineering activity. However, Ergun and Balcin (2019) observed that the frequency of
female engineers’ portrayed decreased among students from higher grades. Similarly, Chou and Chen
(2017) concluded that younger students (4
th
grade) were more likely to picture female engineers compared
to older ones (5
th
and 6
th
grades).
Now addressing the interventions enrolled in the reviewed articles, Carr and Diefes-Dux (2012)
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Drawings: Implications to STEAM Education, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and
Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
studied teachers who participated in a professional program designed to increase technological literacy
and knowledge of the roles and types of engineers. For that, those teachers engaged in interdisciplinary
engineering, math and science activities. Then, teachers were asked to practise at least one engineering
design activity in their class. DAET showed that the number of students who conceived engineers as
designers increased from 5 to 80 in a pre-post conguration. Qualitatively, the authors observed students
portrayed engineers designing various objects such as bicycles, clocks, and a safer playground. They
concluded that the teacher training on engineering had a positive outcome since it eventually impacted
students’ conceptions of engineering.
Additionally, gender representativeness seems inuential in students’ conception of engineering.
Rivale et al. (2020, 22.552.1 to 22.552.12) comment that the gender of the tutor who conducted engineering
activities impacted the frequency of female characters’ drawings among the girls. According to them,
“81% of the girls taught by a female fellow drew a female engineer, compared to 41% of the girls taught
by a male fellow”.
Notably, depending on the subject and pedagogical approach, engineering activities may reinforce
the stereotype of engineering as manual work. For example, Matusovich et al. (2021, p. 894) proposed
some engineering activities, such as the maintenance of a ashlight. Throughout the activities, they also
reported discussions centred on subjects such as cars and buildings. Afterwards, the authors observed
students’ images of engineering distanced from cognitive tasks. Such a non-intellectual perception hindered
them from seeing engineering as a eld connected to other knowledge areas, such as mathematics and
science.
Data revealed an increase in the frequency of responses coded
as having the root terms of x, build, and works on with a decrease in the
frequency of the root terms create, help, and design when comparing pre
and post-classroom engagement responses. Although low to start with,
responses about using math and science and solving problems declined
further on the post-test (Matusovich et al., 2021, p. 894).
Some researchers also analysed objects portrayed. Ata-Aktürk and Demircan (2021a), e.g.
report that almost half of the drawings presented civil structures such as houses, schools, and roads.
Comparatively, design-related objects were found in approximately 6% of them. Likewise, Chou and Chen
(2017) highlighted that elementary children tended to draw civil structures and workers with tools such
as cranes or drilling machines. The authors pinpoint that few images included design-based architectural
engineers who created blueprints for residential buildings.
Discussions
We aimed to review students’ conceptions of engineers and engineering accessed through their
drawings. Accordingly, we discuss the results of this literature review regarding the two research questions.
Initially, we inquire how students’ conceptions of engineers and engineering have been investigated
through drawings.
First, we identied a dearth of research investigating students’ conceptions of engineering through
drawings, especially at the preschool level. One point that explains the literature gap is that engineering
was traditionally absent at precollege levels (Moore et al., 2014). In this regard, we high-light the increasing
interest in interdisciplinary approaches such as STEAM education—referring to integrating Science,
Technology, Engineering, Arts/Humanities, and Mathematics (Marín-Marín et al., 2021; Rodrigues-Silva
and Alsina, 2023b). Countries like The United States (NGSS, 2013), Korea (KOFAC, 2012), and Spain
(MEFP, 2022) are recently adopting those interdisciplinary approaches in their curricula. This curricular
change inherently incorporates engineering at school, which could foster investigations regarding
students’ conceptions of engineering. Especially addressing the lack of research in preschool, this
stage has historically received less attention in research than other educational levels. Preschool is not
mandatory in many countries, and it comprises a diversity of organisational formats (Davis, 2009). Such
complexity is accompanied by specic ethical considerations to investigate very young children that may
discourage some researchers (Abbott and Langston, 2005). Particularly referring to inquiry on students’
conceptions of engineering, perhaps some researchers felt the DAET instrument was inappropriate for
early children due to its written part. Notwithstanding, we suggest the strategy used by Ata-Aktürk and
Demircan (2021a); they assumed preschoolers were illiterate and complemented the instrument with the
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Rodrigues-Silva, J., & Alsina, Á. (2023). Systematic Review About Students’ Conceptions Of Engineering Accessed Through
Drawings: Implications to STEAM Education, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and
Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
Draw-and-tell technique, consisting of informal and quick questions while children draw.
Additionally, we suggest investigations using DAET should be held in different parts of the world
since the current ones are concentrated in the United States. Different cultural and socio-economic
backgrounds can inuence children’s conception of engineering. Some researchers, for instance,
observed that children’s native language impacts children’s understanding of engineering activities (Chou
and Chen, 2017; Knight and Cunningham, 2004; López et al., 2013).
We highlight that many studies underwent quantitative research, including comparison groups,
cohort (cross-age) or pre-post-test designs. However, they generally identied their methods as qualitative
approaches and lacked statistical tests. In those cases, we suggest that authors embrace mixed research
methodologies—while having qualitative data nature, they ought to use appropriate hypothesis testing if
enrolling in such designs. Additionally, DAET could complement other research instruments to understand
children’s engineering conception comprehensively. Some studies have already applied complementary
interviews (Capobianco et al., 2011; Chou and Chen, 2017). Likewise, researchers could combine it
with concept mapping, focus groups, and surveys. Beyond the instruments mentioned, we highlight the
potentiality of incorporating DAET in case studies that explore children’s involvement in engineering-
related activities. Accordingly, eld observations, video recordings, and evaluations of their productions
could provide valuable insights into their engineering conceptions.
Regarding the data collection instrument, the authors made minor modications in the DAET, mainly
regarding the complementary questions about the drawing. We suggest that, once children have nished
their drawings, authors should consider using complementary questions about students’ conception of
gender, place of work, activity, and work setting portrayed. That way, researchers prevent applying bodily
stereotypes such as long hair, eyelashes, and clothing to analyse portrayed genders. In addition, the
indiscernible information rate will probably reduce.
In this same direction, Thomas et al. (2020, 2016) proposed a modied version of DAET,
which explores students’ opinions about how engineering is connected to mathematics and science.
This contour may be attractive considering educational approaches such as STEAM education, which
proposes integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts/Humanities, and Mathematics knowledge
areas (Perignat and Katz-Buonincontro, 2019). Additionally, using DAET consistently, such as adopting
their version, would enhance the comparability of results among future studies.
For this literature review, we also query—what are students’ conceptions of engineers and
engineering? Overall, researchers concluded that students conceive engineers as males who work
individually in manual activities and outdoor environments. Those conceptions are observed from a very
early age, and they are likely to be a response to different sources of information. In this vein, the literature
has shown that children’s picture books carry misconceptions and gender stereotypes about engineers
and engineering (Ata-Aktürk and Demircan, 2021b).
We veried that researchers qualied and quantied various actions related to engineering—
such as xing, constructing, observing and designing—but their conclusions were commonly centred
on whether portrayed engineers were pursuing manual or intellectual tasks. Even though engineering
may sometimes be involved in manual actions or processes, engineers are not likely to be those who
physically execute them. Accordingly, we suggest differentiating one simple product construction from
conceiving a product that will be reproduced. The former is more connected to crafting, while the latter
relates to engineering design.
The reviewed studies showed that older students perceive engineers more accurately as designers.
Cohort studies with appropriate statistical comparisons are needed to check whether older students
tend to view engineering as a collective, intellectual, and indoor activity. However, studies already point
out that gender stereotypes intensify with age. Those ndings reinforce the urge to address Education
for Sustainability (EfS) since Early Childhood Education (ECE) (Rodrigues-Silva and Alsina, 2023a;
UNESCO, 2008), precisely the sustainable development goal of pursuing gender equity (United Nations,
2015). In this sense, while studies with DAET evidence gender stereotypes, to an extent, they indicate
the necessity of developing strategies to inverse the critical gender inequality in technical areas. Ata-
Aktürk and Demircan (2021a), for example, evidenced that picture books for children aged 3 to 6 years
from Turkey mainly represent engineers as male characters. Accordingly, the authors suggest increasing
children’s contact with cultural content developed through a gender-inclusive prism. In a similar direction,
Knight and Cunningham (2004) indicated that exposing children to female engineers’ role models likely
increased their perception of women in engineering. Furthermore, parents’ and teachers’ conceptions of
engineering should be explored and developed so children’s environment and social interaction do not
transmit and reinforce gender stereotypes—studies utilising DAET with teachers observed they similarly
represent more male engineers (Vo and Hammack, 2022).
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Rodrigues-Silva, J., & Alsina, Á. (2023). Systematic Review About Students’ Conceptions Of Engineering Accessed Through
Drawings: Implications to STEAM Education, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and
Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
Teacher education is vital for effectively addressing and challenging these stereotypes in engineering.
Literature warns that poorly planned activities in engineering worsen stereotypical gender (Fleer, 2021;
Matusovich et al., 2021). Gender equality concerns could be incorporated into teacher training programs
focused on developing teachers’ STEAM planning ability (Rodrigues-Silva and Alsina, 2022).
STEAM education fundamentally requires beyond diagnosticating students’ conceptions of
engineers and engineering and providing pedagogical strategies to develop such conceptions. In this
sense, Moore et al. (2014) recommend a framework wherein they claim the conception of engineers and
engineering must be a topic for precollege engineering teaching.
Therefore, there is a need for activities that enhance the conceptions of engineering. Knight and
Cunningham (2004) incentivised the teacher applying the DAET to seize the opportunity and have a
discussion class about engineering after the students responded to the instrument. In this vein, Silva-
Hormazábal, Rodrigues-Silva and Alsina (2022) proposed a STEAM activity wherein students from
primary education responded to the DAET and then enrolled in a statistical investigative cycle. Children
formulated hypotheses and analysed their drawings in class. For that, students count the frequency of
similar categories presented in this review, such as gender, and eventually, they discuss the results.
Studies show that teachers lack knowledge about STEAM as an educational approach (López et al.,
2021). Overall, the literature in STEAM education carries misconceptions of engineering and frequently
reduces it to crafting. Specically, teachers report unfamiliarity and difculty integrating engineering
and technology into their lesson plans (Rodrigues-Silva and Alsina, 2022). In this sense, studies using
DAET showed teachers present similar misconceptions of engineers and engineering of those to the
students (Hammack and Vo, 2019; Vo and Hammack, 2022). Notwithstanding, we should highlight that an
inappropriate pedagogical approach to engineering may induce misconceptions about it. This unintended
effect occurred, for example, with the interventions reported by Matusovich et al. (2021), wherein students
did activities such as xing ashlights and discussing cars and civil constructions. Pre and post-test
indicated that more students perceived engineering as manual work. In this case, the pedagogical
planning of those activities failed to remark that engineers are involved with electrical devices, machinery,
and civil structures, but their activity is not about manually xing or constructing them. On the contrary,
engineers deal with intellectual tasks such as designing electrical devices, machinery, and civil structures;
and planning and supervising production and maintenance processes.
Conclusions
The major contribution of this study is providing an overview of the investigation of children’s
conceptions of engineering through their drawings. There were no similar previous systematic reviews,
and related work concerns empirical studies which address specic regional contexts.
The results of this review allow drawing some conclusions on exploring children’s conceptions of
engineers and engineering:
• There is a dearth of studies investigating students’ conceptions of engineering through drawings;
• Researchers should converge DAET instructions to help comparability of results and prevent
misguided analysis such as applying stereotypes to identify genders;
• Researchers undergo complex research designs such as comparison groups, cohort (cross-age)
or pre-post-test using DAET. However, those studies frequently lack appropriate statistical tests;
• At a very early age, children already exhibit misconceptions or stereotypes of engineering as a
profession of men working individually in manual activities and outdoor environments;
• Teachers must have the proper training to embrace precollege engineering activities. Otherwise,
they will likely enrol in poorly designed activities that worsen misconceptions about engineering.
The study provides exciting insights for research and educational practices, especially considering
the current interest in engineering in interdisciplinary STEAM education and the aspiration of a sustainable
society which pursues gender equity. Among the future directions, we highlight using the draw-and-tell
technique for more studies in preschool age. Consistently writing DAET instructions and questions for
drawings descriptions, such as proposed by Thomas et al. (2020, 2016) version, to enhance comparability
among the studies. Asking children directly about the gender portrayed prevents applying stereotypes to
infer gender representations. Finally, conceiving activities explicitly addressing engineering and placing it
more accurately as an intellectual practice instead of one product construction such as crafting.
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Rodrigues-Silva, J., & Alsina, Á. (2023). Systematic Review About Students’ Conceptions Of Engineering Accessed Through
Drawings: Implications to STEAM Education, International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and
Education (IJCRSEE), 11(2), 199-211.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Minas Gerais
(IFMG) for the qualication license that enabled this research.
Conict of interests
The authors declare no conict of interest.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, J.R.-S. and Á.A.; methodology, J.R.-S. and Á.A.; formal analysis, J.R.-S.;
writing—original draft preparation, J.R.-S.; writing—review and editing, Á.A.; supervision, Á.A. All authors
have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
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