Authors: As there is a corresponding author are the other e-mail addresses needed.

Please supply an address for Katherine A. Gustafson

International Journal of Engineering Education Vol. 32, No. 1(A), pp. 111, 2016
Printed in Great Britain

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IJEE 3163 PROOFS

0949-149X/91 $3.00+0.00
# 2016 TEMPUS Publications.

STEM Integration: A Study examining the enactment of

prescribed Research Based Engineering Curriculum*
ANTHONY J. PETROSINO**
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, Mail Stop D5700, Austin, Texas
78712-0382, USA. E-mail: ajpetrosino@austin.utexas.edu

KATHERINE A. GUSTAFSON
E-mail: kathy.gustafson@dsisd.txed.net

PRATEEK SHEKHAR
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 204 E. Dean Keeton Street, Stop C2200, ETC II 5.160, Austin,
Texas 78712-1591, USA. E-mail: pshekhar@utexas.edu

K-12 engineering is a critical platform for achieving integrated science, technology, engineering, and math STEM teaching
and learning in the Unites States. This has fueled research in the development and testing of integrated STEM curricula.
This study examines the contrasting ways in which a prescribed curriculum is translated into practice. The study examines
the implementation of 12-week secondary engineering unit (helmet design) by a teacher with high content knowledge in
engineering in a rural/suburban school with 20 students. The unit was designed with signicant input from a universitybased team including content experts, learning scientists, master teachers, classroom teachers, and school district
administrators as part of a grant focused on the creation of a high school engineering course. Five strands were identied
in the unit for analysis: assessment, activities, apparatus, technology, and standards. Findings indicate much alignment
with apparatus, standards, and technology strands and disparity within the assessment and activities strands between the
prescribed unit and its enactment in the course by the teacher.
Keywords: STEM integration; K-12 engineering education; engineering curriculum

1. Introduction
Alignment between curriculum standards, instruction, and assessment greatly facilitates communication about the specic content teachers are required
to teach and represents a necessary condition for
reliable assessment and accountability results and
condence in inferences about what students know.
Studies have shown repeatedly that students who
are taught more of the curricula content that
appears on achievement tests or well-aligned state
testing outperform those who are taught less of that
content when controlling for other factors such as
prior knowledge, teacher ability, and socioeconomic status [13]. Therefore, it appears fairly
straightforward that students opportunities to
learn, retain, and retrieve specic objects in the K16 curriculum are concurrently a feature of instruction as well as a critical factor in student learning.
The criticality of integrated science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM) curricula towards
helping students develop deep and coherent understanding of STEM disciplines has been widely
emphasized by policy makers, research councils,
and educational researchers. K-12 engineering is a
critical platform for achieving integrated STEM
** Corresponding author.
* Accepted 15 September 2015.

teaching and learning in the Unites States [4, 5].

This has fueled research in the development and
testing of integrated STEM curricula. Several
researchers have developed and implemented engineering projects integrating STEM disciplines [68].
The present study oers a unique and unprecedented description of the goals, challenges, and
results of looking closely and intimately at a new
research-based, university-developed secondary
engineering unit (part of a larger, course development project) and the enactment of such a unit in an
informed but typical secondary school classroom.
Curriculum analysis and classroom-based
research has recognized the dierences between
prescribed and enacted curricula as one of the
challenges of implementing STEM integration [9].
The importance of the curriculum and specically
curricular content has led researchers, curriculum
developers, and school ocials to become increasingly interested in the measurement of the enacted
curriculum in K-16 settings. Specically, researchers have investigated amount of instructional time,
eort, resources dedicated to teaching, and other
factors in regard to various strands or topics in the
K-16 curriculum [2, 10].
The present study documents the commonality
and dierences between the prescribed and enacted
curriculum, working from a corpus of data includ1

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ing a 16-week, university-based curriculum unit;

support documents; teacher enactment logs and
teacher materials. The methodology utilized was a
combination of a teacher-directed action research
project with a detailed case study using grounded
theory. Through a number of iterations and qualitative analysis, we identied ve specic areas of the
curriculum: apparatus, assessment, standards,
activities, and technology. This study includes a
detailed analysis of how each strand was originally
communicated or prescribed to the practicing teacher; how the specic strand was enacted; and
dierences, commonalities, and tensions between
the prescribed and enacted and some possible classroom implications.

2. Literature review
As curriculum has been studied historically, it has
been realized that the general sense of the word
evolved into various ideas associated with the
expression. Researchers have made a clear distinction between the intended or prescribed curriculum,
the one planned for, and the implemented curriculum, the actual classroom practice [10]. In general,
these distinctions have been organized and articulated according to the level in which the curriculum
is examined: (a) the intended curriculum, at the level
of the system; (b) the implemented curriculum, at
the level of the class; and (c) the attained curriculum,
at the level of the student (the attained curriculum is
not addressed in this study) [1113]. Porter and
Smithson [14], in their classic work in the area,
distinguished the intended from the assessed curriculum and the enacted from the learned curriculum.
According to these researchers, the assessed curriculum is the one represented by high-stakes high
accountability tests. The learned curriculum is the
content that has been learned as well as the level of
prociency oered by test scores (p. 3) [14].
Regardless of the plans or the tests, however important they might be in determining what occurs in the
classroom, the curriculum observed during classroom practice, the enacted curriculum, has an
identity of its own. The enacted curriculum is
arguably the single most important feature on any
curriculum indicator system (p. 2) [14]. From some
researchers perspective, teachers are active developers of the enacted curriculum, constituted by the
experiences, whether intended or not, which occur
within the engineering classroom [1518]. Recent
eorts for engineering education and curriculum
reform have sought to impact these dierent levels.
In many countries, the intended curriculum is
reected in a national curriculum. In the United
States, in the absence of a national curriculum, some
entities have engaged in the process of curriculum

Anthony J. Petrosino et al.

standards. For instance, the National Council of

Teachers of Mathematics published several documents, collectively known as the Standards, which
called for changes in both content and teaching
practices [19, 20]. These documents provided a
vision for school mathematics intended to shape
content, instruction, and assessment. A basic tenet
of these documents was that what a student learns
depends to a great degree on how he or she has
learned it (p. 5) [19]. The eorts to reform school
mathematics embodied in the Standards documents
created opportunities to develop curricula that
would follow these recommendations. Similar
eorts have been conducted in science [21], geography [22], and engineering [23].
Reform in STEM education is an extremely
complex undertaking, because it aims at a systemic
improvement of education; its object is not only
curriculum or teaching style or learning environments but also an entire matrix combining content,
means, social needs, and values with the populations of students, teachers, researchers, parents, and
politicians (p. 389) [24]. Amit and Fried [24]
cautioned against pseudo-reform, in which materials are produced that seem to conform to reform
recommendations but actually embody the practices that the reform is trying to amend, or teachers
who use reform materials in class yet persist in
teaching in a way that contradicts the spirit of
reform [see also [17]].
The nature of a desirable change in teaching
paradigms has been summarized well:
[A] case can be made that traditional teaching involves
a kind of teaching in which the teacher informs students
about mathematics through the primary scheme of
telling and showing. . . . Traditional teaching, so
conceived, allows us to consider a dierent kind of
teaching, one which involves less telling and showing
and more creating mathematical communities in which
process and communication transcend product. We
can call this kind of teaching reform teaching, and we
can conceive of teacher change as moving from the
traditional mode to the reform mode. (p. 11) [25]

Thus, the making of a curriculum, from the design

to the enactment, is a process of narrowing down
from the universe of possible activities to those
considered desirable for use in the classroom
(p. 136) [26]. Bishop [26] argued that the rst
stages of this process are established by the government, the state, or the school, well before the teacher
is able to make any decision. The curriculum then
continues to narrow once in the hands of the
teacher, and more decision making is apparent.
History has established the importance of factoring in the dierent strands of curriculum and the
essential need to study one of the most crucial
aspects, the enacted curriculum. To understand

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STEM Integration: A Study examining the enactment of prescribed Research Based Engineering Curriculum

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the how, rather than the end result, laid the foundation of much-needed research in the area of measurement of this curriculum in order to qualify its
signicance.
The idea of measuring the enacted curriculum
emerged slowly and centered primarily in the area of
research on teaching [12]. Early research largely
ignored this construct, focusing almost exclusively
on the eects of teaching behaviors on student
achievement in curricular domains. This approach
occurred without any attempts to control for the
potentially confounding impact of dierences in the
amount of and quality of coverage of the curriculum
by teachers. This approach led to a great deal of
criticism and eventually to a gradual recognition
that measures of the enacted curriculum were central to research on teaching [for an excellent review,
see [27]].
One result of this critique was that early measures
of the enacted curriculum were designed simply to
control for the overlap between what was taught
and what was tested [1, 28]. Basically, the strategy
was to obtain a table of curriculum content for the
achievement test being used in a study and then to
ask teachers to check those content areas where
instruction had been oered (mainly during the
period of study).
As this research line matured, educational
researchers incorporated increasingly sophisticated
ideas about the curriculum into their research. One
development was the formulation of a hierarchical
conception of the curriculum. Here, the enacted
curriculum was seen as having at least two dimensions worthy of measurement. The rst was simply a
list of the topics or objectives that constitute a given
subject in the curriculum. A second dimension was
the cognitive complexity at which a given curriculum topic was taught [10].
Currently, most research on the enacted curriculum conceptualizes schooling as a series of repeated
(e.g., daily) exposures to instruction and takes as the
key measurement problem to sample across days of
instruction in order to produce an estimate of the
overall amount or rate of exposure to particular
elements of a curriculum during some xed interval
of time.
It has been shown that not only is the measurement of the enacted curriculum essential to understanding what students will learn, but the nature of
the analysis is equally important. Previous eorts to
gather data on the enacted curriculum have relied
on basically two approaches. The most common
approach has been to send trained observers into
schools to collect structured observational data,
using video and coding later by experts. This
approach, often seen as ideal, was used extensively
in processproduct research [for a review, see [29]]

and is increasingly used in studies of instructional

improvement interventions [30]. However, inperson classroom observations (and video recording) are expensive, and as a result, their use in largesample research has been limited to only a few, wellfunded studies [e.g. 31, 32].

3. Methodology
The unit was enacted in a rural/suburban school by
a group of 20 general education students (15 males)
with a teacher with high content knowledge in
engineering (a former civil engineer) as well as 10
years of experience as a classroom teacher. The
teacher was also part of the same National Science
Foundation grant (UTeach Engineering) and was in
the process of obtaining a masters degree in STEM
education during the study. The prescribed curriculum was created by UTeach Engineering sta. It
consisted of a binder with paper resources by unit
including an overview for some of the lessons, a
teacher page with specics on the intent of the
curriculum and additional resources, a student
page if needed, a CD with the same resources, and
additional resources that could be used throughout.
These supplementary documents included calculation pages, handouts on various topics related to
helmet design, PowerPoint lessons, and other
resources.
Because this course was being piloted as the
curriculum developed by The University of Texas
education and engineering sta, there were several
opportunities for interaction (focus groups and email correspondence) during the 12 weeks as well as
just-in-time trainings and lectures on helmet design
by university engineering professors oering piloting teachers resources to aid in the development of
content knowledge and their delivery of the curriculum.
In order to analyze the prescribed and enacted
curriculum systematically, the data needed to be
identied and then each piece examined in a structured way. Grounded theory is a research method
that operates almost in a reverse fashion from
traditional research and at rst may appear to be
in contradiction to the scientic method. Rather
than beginning with a hypothesis, the rst step is
marking key points in the collected data with a series
of codes, which are extracted from the text. The
codes are grouped into similar concepts in order to
make them more workable. From these concepts,
categories are formed, which are the basis for the
creation of a theory, or a reverse-engineered
hypothesis. With the understanding of the idea of
grounded theory, each curriculum was studied to
determine if there were common strands that related
to the curriculum and could be seen as possible areas

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of investigation. A list was created as these strands

were identied. Five strands seemed to emerge from
the study: assessment, hands-on activities, technology, standards, and apparatus. The strands were
then dened and then identied within each curriculum.
Assessment is referred to as any formative and
summative form that refers to all those activities
undertaken by teachers, and by their students in
self-assessment, which provide information to be
used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged. Hands-on
activities were dened as activities that students
performed by doing, in order to develop an understanding of a particular topic. Technology was
dened as anything related to computers, Internet,
software, projectors, blogs, and the like. Standards
referred to the Engineering Design and Problem
Solving Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills that
were the basis for the creation of the curriculum.
Finally, apparatus included all materials used, the
helmet, the hardware to collect data, and any
modications made to the test stand. Each of
these strands was then color coded and identied
in the prescribed and enacted curriculum using a
highlighter of the color chosen: assessment, green;
hands-on activities, blue; technology, orange; standards, pink; and apparatus, yellow. After coding,
the curriculum was analyzed and a list of highlighted text was recorded, noting any common
themes among each strand. As the common
themes emerged, a second list was created with a
description of each strand emphasizing the themes
noted. This process continued until all strands were
addressed and a clear description of each was
complete.
Documents serve as an unbiased source of evidence in qualitative research [33] and provides data
which are thoughtful in that participants have given
attention to compiling them (p. 188) [34]. The
central method of data analysis consisted of examining teacher logs. These logs were created by the
teacher during the actual 12-week unit on helmet
design. Each day, notes were taken on all aspects of
the lesson: exactly how it played out, how the
enacted curriculum compared to or diered from
the prescribed curriculum, reasons for the deviations, and possible modication based on the
resources available in that particular classroom.
These daily logs were then organized by lessons.
The helmet design unit consisted of 16 lessons,
ranging from 2 days to 2 weeks in length. Data
analysis by lesson allowed for less focus on day-today time constraints due to unforeseen classroom
issues such as assemblies, testing of students, and
being out for extracurricular activities and more
focus on the curriculum as a whole. Lastly, as

Anthony J. Petrosino et al.

presented in the ndings section, for each strand,

the data from the teacher logs were compared and
contrasted to the data of the prescribed curriculum
to identify dierences and similarities along the
emergent sub-strands or themes.

4. Findings
4.1 Assessment
Assessment has a vital role in any curriculum in
almost any setting, whether it is formative assessment, summative assessment, assessment centered
on accountability measures, or informal assessments of student understanding and a teachers
decision on when to proceed or remain on a topic
or unit. For the prescribed curriculum, four substands within assessment were identied: questioning techniques, class or group discussions, Engineering Notebook reections, and formal and
informal presentations. On the other hand, in the
enacted curriculum we identied dierences and
similarities within these sub-strands.
The presence of questioning techniques and class
or group discussions as a form of assessment in both
the prescribed and enacted curriculum. In the prescribed curriculum, questioning techniques usually
consisted of a series of questions following watching
videos, reading articles, or observing procedures or
apparatuses. These questions were written in such a
way to help lead the student to the desired learning
or task outcome. Usually the series included many
questions, which allowed for variety in questioning
depending on student response. The teacher logs
indicated extensive use of questioning in enactment
of the prescribed curriculum. At least a third of the
teacher logs reported instances of teacher questions
probing students helmet unit centered content
knowledge such as physics incorporated in the
bench apparatus, how to conduct data runs and
iterations, the description and utilization of box
plots, and the comparison of baseline and nal
data. Although these questions included two of
the prescribed areas of questioning such as observing procedures and apparatuses, the other questions focused on data modelling and statistical
understanding which was the teachers area of
expertise.
Similarly, the presence of class and group discussions was documented in the prescribed curriculum
and its enactment by the teacher. However, the
ndings revealed implementation dierences. In
the prescribed curriculum, class and group discussions asked the students to reect, recognize, and
compare data inconsistencies or design aws. In the
enactment, the teacher showed students videos
about usefulness of helmets and then assessed
student prior knowledge by initiating brainstorm-

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STEM Integration: A Study examining the enactment of prescribed Research Based Engineering Curriculum

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ing discussions focusing on key concepts related to

the unit. Such brainstorming discussions were
extensively used and were mentioned on almost
half of the lessons logs.
Among other dierences, we noted the absence of
sub-strands identied in the prescribed and presence
of additional forms of assessment in the enacted
curriculum. Specically, contrary to the prescribed
curriculum, the teacher logs indicated the absence of
presentations and Engineering notebooks (tool
intended to document ndings and reections) as
a form of assessment. On the other hand, the
enacted curriculum identied two additional
forms of assessment. First, the teacher used
Myers-Briggs Personality Test to assess how student interest ts in with group work, ways to
delineate individual and shared responsibilities,
and how students compared to each other and the
rest of the class. Second, another area of assessment
that emerged was a less formal aspect which is
identied as personal experience. The teacher used
students input to personalize the unit. The teacher
asked students about their experiences with head
injuries and asked them to bring in outside articles
and readings of their choice about helmet design.
The personalization of the unit was used to provide
the necessary interest level to motivate the students
to want to design a helmet that would protect
against real circumstances.
4.2 Activities
The next strand considered in the analysis of the
prescribed and enacted curriculum related to the
activities performed to facilitate learning. The use of
activity-based aspects of classroom instruction is
often considered a key aspect of STEM education.
The hands-on activities in the prescribed curriculum
consisted of four sub-strands: activities related to
accuracy versus precision, concept generation, test
bench and helmet design, research, video-related
activities, and document creation.
In the prescribed curriculum, a short activity
catered to the concepts of precision versus accuracy.
It involved watching a video for motivational purposes and then required the students to look at a set
of data and determine if it was considered accurate
or precise based on the denitions learned prior to
the lesson. On the other hand, the teacher engaged
students with the concepts of accuracy and precision
in a more detailed and experiential manner. The
activity needed more explanation so that students
could by themselves collect and analyze data to
determine accuracy and precision, which was not
covered in the prescribed curriculum. The teacher
expanded the prescribed activity with lessons on the
use of box plots for the analysis of data. Thereafter,
student engaged in activities centering on data

recording and analysis focused on the accuracy

and precision of the lab bench and activities centering on aordances of various data displays (i.e., box
plots). By extending the lesson, the students were
exposed to greater understanding of not only how to
create a box plot but also how to use the box plot in
the analysis of the data to determine the accuracy
and precision of their results.
Activities relating to concept generation were
emphasized in the both prescribed and enacted
curriculum. While the prescribed curriculum
included the creation of concept generation forms
and Pugh charts by students, the enacted curriculum
more on allowing students to mentally play with
information in order to create a personal understanding of the subject matter to be learned. This
theme was emphasized as the teacher pushed on
having students think about the types of head
injuries that can occur during the failure of a
helmet as well as the about the construction process
in making a helmet. Such activities took up a
number of classroom instructional days and were
important themes throughout the unit.
The test bench and helmet design activities
focused around design creation and iteration of
either the test bench or the helmet. In the prescribed
curriculum, these were organized into a set of subactivities. First set related to the test bench involved
building a model of what a test bench should look
like using craft sticks and glue, followed by brainstorming activity about what a revised test bench
design. The second set of activities involved using
the selected helmet design and developing a prototype. Prototype creation consisted of using various
materials to be added to the suspension system,
testing the prototype, and recording the deection
of the apparatus. The last set of activities focused on
creating box plots to display data collected and
analyzing the box plots to determine the next
iteration of design considerations.
In the enacted version, two key modications
were noted. First, the making of a model of the
test bench was eliminated from the enacted curriculum. Although the idea of creating a model is useful,
two main iterations were already completed, and
much time was devoted to those activities that
related to the test benches. Creating a prototype
with craft sticks seemed time intensive, so in place of
that was a design drawing that seemed to be completed fairly quickly and had the same eect as the
model. The main purpose was to have the students
think about what modication could be made from
the rst to the second bench. It proved to be an
ecient use of time as well as accomplishing the goal
of a design iteration. Second, the teacher-initiated
activities included a major modication to the lab
bench, the drilling of holes so that a peg could be

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inserted into the device in order to drop the weight

from the exact height each time. This brought
consistency to the measurement process and was a
clear innovation by the teacher. One of the key
points emphasized by the teacher was stressing
that well-thought-out design was the key to good
design and not the less disciplined trial-and-error
method so often utilized by novices. In addition, the
teacher included lessons centered on the issues of
proper lab bench behavior as well as test bench
procedures, incorporated in order to assure proper
utilization of the equipment.
Research was a common activity throughout the
prescribed curriculum. Most research had a clear
expectation as to what the outcome should be. For
example, the Market Analysis Survey consisted a
specic set of questions to be answered using the
Internet as a tool. Research was considered handson due to the group work embedded in most of the
research activities and the oral, group summarization that was expected as an outcome of the activity.
In the enactment, the teacher expanded on the
customer needs analysis for the helmet unit. The
prescribed curriculum did not require a full customer needs analysis, but using customer interviews
found online and asking friends and relatives of the
students allowed students to be more in tune with
their designs. However, the teacher included additional mini-activity in which students were grouped
and were asked to generate six customer needs using
interviews. This was an exciting and engaging
activity for the students and was inuenced by the
teachers previous career as a civil engineer.
Lastly, the video-related and document creation
activities were in parallel with minimal changes
when compared to the prescribed curriculum.
Video activities consisted of watching videos and
then answering questions, having discussions, or
completing a handout summarizing ndings. The
curriculum titled many sections Motivational
Videos, which included videos that would be
interesting in nature and motivating for the students. For document creation, the prescribed curriculum included the maintenance of Engineering
Notebook.
4.3 Apparatus
The next strand considered was related to the
apparatus, the test bench and all associated materials. The prescribed curriculum called for the helmet
to be modied by adding materials to the original
suspension system by varying thickness and materials. A small list of materials was suggested, including memory foam, upholstery foam, glue adhesive,
and later a possible combination of these materials
and materials from home. The two test benches were
also included in the apparatus strand of the curri-

Anthony J. Petrosino et al.

culum. The rst test bench was introduced, and tests

were to be done to determine if the bench produced
accurate and precise results. The curriculum called
for the students to determine modications of the
test bench, and the new test bench was then to be
revealed. Test bench procedure was to be developed,
and baseline data were to be determined. Several
handouts related to the apparatus of the bench and
dierent technologies and types of benches on the
market. The software Labview was connected to the
test bench to record deection, which can be related
to the energy absorbed in the helmet. The physics
and mathematics were also to be explained to
students, and teacher handouts included much of
this information.
Four primary themes emerged in relation to
apparatus: introduction to test bench, design and
redesign of test bench, procedures used for test
bench, and use of test bench for measurements.
Over 35 references to apparatus were noted in the
teacher logs during the unit, with generally more
occurrences and time spent on apparatus as the unit
proceeded.
Analyzing the prescribed and enacted curriculum
in the area of apparatus revealed both similarities
and dierences between the two. In the two themes
of introduction to the test bench and design and
redesign of the test bench, there was little deviation
between the prescribed and enacted curriculum. For
introduction to the test bench, items of concentration included references to what the test apparatus
should like, photos and videos of test benches, and
references to how a test bench operates. This classication was largely procedural and functional yet
served an important, prominent role during the
initial lessons of the unit and increased in occurrence
and time spent as the unit progressed toward the
testing phase. For design and redesign of the test
bench, attention was paid to becoming accustomed
to a lab bench, prototyping of the bench, designing
and redesigning the bench apparatus, and comparing aordances and constraints related to the initial
and nal design. One aspect especially prevalent was
the iterative nature of design and functionality as
embodied in the lab bench apparatus.
A third theme apparent in the curriculum in terms
of apparatus was procedures used for the test bench.
The teachers own experience and expertise in this
area and assertiveness seem to pay dividends and
was also one of the areas in which the enacted
curriculum most departed from the prescribed curriculum concurring apparatus. In the prescribed
curriculum, this theme consisted of procedural
details of putting together, building, and modifying
the test bench apparatus. In the enactment, the
teacher clearly paid attention to testing procedures,
ideas of accuracy and precision of measurement,

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drilling holes, and the suspension system. The

suspension system received a great deal of attention
during the second half of the unit, with lengthy
discussions on the entire suspension system,
improving the system, and making modications
to the suspension system. Several changes were
noted in the enactment in regard to the prescribed
curriculum. First, the use of additional materials
such as rubber bands and string were added to the
enacted curriculum. This change was not necessarily
extensively thought out but proved to be a great
addition in design options that students were able to
explore. These materials happened to be extra in the
teachers cabinet and were therefore added. Second,
while the prescribed curriculum did not state
whether or not the helmet could be modied in
any way; in the enactment, the idea of students
drilling holes was commended and allowed.
Again, this modication proved to produce many
innovative designs by the students. Third, contrary
to the prescribed curriculum, the enacted curriculum involved modication to the height of the
weight on the actual test bench. Altering the
height prolonged the life of the test bench and
allowed for accurate data acquisition. This change
was made after the teacher noticed inconsistencies
in the collected data.
A nal theme identied in the area of apparatus
was the test bench being used for measurements.
Specically, items that emerged in this analysis
included issues centering on error in measurements
and in how to analyze test data. Data modeling and
statistics were not clearly outlined in the prescribed
curriculum and were identied as departures from
the prescribed curriculum. Similar to other themes,
this variation was attributable to the teachers background in statistics (Advanced Placement Statistics
teacher at the high school) and expertise in the
content-specic discourse on the test bench apparatus (civil engineering experience). These variations
included extended lessons on the statistics behind
box plots, how they can be used in the area of
determining precision and accuracy, and using this
information to make clear design recommendations.
4.4 Technology
Technology stands at the core of curriculum design
targeting STEM integration using engineering as a
platform. The themes related to technology that
were apparent in the prescribed curriculum consisted of the use of devices such as computers and
projectors and internet capabilities, use of software
for data collection and use of videos as an instructional tool.
First, as documented in the prescribed curriculum, use of computers, projectors and internet was

also evident in the enacted curriculum. The teachers logs indicated the utilization of such technologies, for example, the internet was used for web
searches and projectors for student and teacher
presentations. These technologies were used in a
traditional prescribed manner without any innovative modications by the teacher in the enacted
curriculum.
Second, the use of software for data collection
was in alignment between the prescribed and
enacted curriculum. The prescribed curriculum
recommended the use of Labview software to collect
deection, velocity and acceleration data. The
enacted curriculum included the use of the prescribed software as an interface for data collection
and analysis for the helmet lab bench activity. The
use of software allowed the accurate measurement
of trial runs on various helmet designs, energy
absorption tests, and force impacts. For the most
part, this worked uidly and provided the teacher
and students with accurate and professional-looking lab data, which were eectively used in data
analysis and design-making decisions and iterations.
Third, the use of videos was evident in both the
curriculums, however teacher logs mentioned challenges that the teacher face in its use. The prescribed
curriculum suggested the use of YouTube videos to
aid classroom instruction. Being a prohibited site,
the use of YouTube videos was a tedious process for
the teacher. The teacher assigned most of the videos
to watch at home while the students were able to
watch some of the videos using their phones. Also,
since the videos were not created specically for the
helmet unit, there were mentions of student frustrations in teacher logs regarding the content and
relevance of the videos. The prescribed curriculum
included YouTube as the main source of videos for
aiding instruction. Although videos are a great way
for the student to engage in a lesson, access to them
needs to be universal for any school or institution.
Providing all videos on a disc or already embedded
into the curriculum would be extremely helpful to
the teacher who does not have Internet capabilities
or access to specic websites. Although not all
schools or institutions would have the required
technologies available, alternatives for the technology dependent components, including assessment,
activities, and presentations, could be written and
provided in a supplemental lesson to the curriculum. This would give teachers options within these
areas and, if the technology was not available,
provide an essential resource for those teachers.
4.5 Standards
Standards play an important role in any curriculum.
In case of our UTeach Engineering Project, stan-

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dards are at the forefront on both state and national

levels. The developed prescribed curriculum was
funded to be a model for a high school engineering
course for the state of Texas. In addition, with a
directive from the National Science Foundation, the
curriculum is also currently slated to be a competing
national model for a high school engineering course.
After careful analysis of each curriculum related
to this strand, the dierences were subtle and almost
nonexistent; therefore, the standards section will be
discussed as one entity related to the enacted curriculum. Standards were an important aspect of both
the prescribed and enacted curricula. The themes
that emerged in prescribed curriculum were in
parallel with the themes apparent in the enacted
curriculum. In reviewing the teacher logs for standards as implemented during the enacted curriculum, four main themes emerged. These themes are
also in alignment with the National Content Standards developed by the American Society for Engineering Education, namelycommunication and
teamwork, engineering design, procedural aspects
of design, and the nature of engineering.
The rst theme to emerge was communication
and teamwork. This theme was evident by numerous references in the teacher logs to working
together in the workplace as well as coordination,
group work, collaboration, the value of dierent
personalities (recall Myers-Briggs based assessment), and autonomy versus group activity. A
second theme to emerge centered on engineering
design. With design being an integral part of the

curriculum, the issue of design was prevalent

throughout the enacted curriculum. References to
design challenges (designing the helmet), the nal
design, the challenge statement, Pugh charts (a
simple design tool for comparing design ideas
against design criteria early in the design process)
all underscored the emphasis of design in the
curricular unit. The third related but distinct
theme was the procedural aspect of design. Teacher
logs identied several references to testing, prototyping, and collecting and analyzing data. Lastly,
the fourth emergent theme showed how the standards revolved around the nature of engineering. In
the helmet design unit, issues related to the nature of
engineering were at the forefront with emphasis on
understanding the problem, communicating,
explaining the process, and addressing customer
needs. The relevancy of the curriculum to the
nature of engineering often remains underemphasized in engineering courses, but in our case they
were addressed in detail during the enactment of the
curriculum by the teacher.
In summary, the teacher logs indicated deviations
from the prescribed curriculum and several other
implementation nuances. Five thrusts were identied in the unit for analysis: assessment, activities,
apparatus, technology, and standards. Our ndings
indicate much alignment with apparatus, standards,
and technology strands and disparity within the
assessment and activities strand between the prescribed unit and its enactment in the course by the
teacher (Table 1). Most of the variations in assess-

Table 1. Summary of alignment between prescribed and enacted curriculum

Sub Strands

Prescribed
Curriculum

Enacted
Curriculum

Variations

Questioning techniques
Class or group discussions
Engineering Notebook reections
Formal and informal presentations
Personality Test
Personal Experience

Present
Present
Present
Present
Not present
Not present

Present
Present
Not present
Not present
Present
Present

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes

Accuracy Vs Precision
Concept generation
Test bench and helmet design
Research
Video-related activities
Document creation
Introduction to test bench
Design and redesign of test bench
Procedures for test bench
Use of test bench for measurements

Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present

Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present
Present

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Minimal
Minimal
Minimal
Minimal
Yes
Yes

Technology

Use of devices
Use of software
Use of videos

Present
Present
Present

Present
Present
Present

No
No
Minimal

Standards

Communication and network

Engineering design
Procedural aspect of design
Nature of engineering

Present
Present
Present
Present

Present
Present
Present
Present

Minimal
Minimal
Minimal
Minimal

Strand
Assessment

Activities

Apparatus

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ment and activities strands were inuenced by the

teachers prior experiences and subject related
expertise. In addition, we noted variations between
the two curriculum due to situational and resource
constraints. Although the teacher deviated from the
prescribed curriculum in this study, most of changes
made in the curriculum exposed the students to
better and exible learning opportunities.

5. Discussion
Alignment or tension between the prescribed curriculum and the enacted curriculum is a consistent
challenge in all of curriculum development. Before
moving further into addressing this tension, curriculum developers need to consider two intertwined
aspects of curriculum design process. First, curriculum developers need to address the degree of faculty
involvement in the curriculum development process. In our study, although the teacher played an
active role in the development of the unit, her role
was limited to providing suggestions and recommendations in the development process rather than
co-developing the unit. Our ndings indicated that
the teacher included certain elements in the enacted
curriculum conducive to student learning for that
particular classroom setting. On the other hand,
researchers have indicated that teachers perceptions played an inuential role when teachers developed a unit on their own [35]. This inuence of
teacher perception might lead to prioritization of
dierent elements of curriculum over others, leaving
room for exclusion of critical elements necessary for
coherent STEM integration. Thus, in one sense
there is the expertise and experience of curriculum
developers attempting to create a rich, innovative,
and rewarding experience for students and teachers,
while trying to keep in mind standards, accountability, and content-specic understanding. In
another sense, the expertise of the teacher also
must be acknowledged and appreciated as the
teacher implements a curriculum unit to the class.
Are the students being challenged enough? Too
much? Are the activities engaging? Do they feel up
to the content knowledge required? These are just a
few of the practical issues involved.
The second aspect that curriculum developers
need to consider is to decide whether the curriculum
is designed for direct adoption or provides enough
exibility for adaptation. Curriculum designs are
not self-sucient and often need modications to
acclimatize with the socioeconomic nuances of the
academic environment in which they are being
implemented [36]. In addition, in the case of discovery and inquiry-based learning, teachers often
shape the curriculum continuously during its implementation [37]. A strict, prescribed curriculum, due

to its inexibility, might cause discomfort among

teachers during implementation. Curriculum and
instruction research supports adaptation and customization [38]. Teachers and administrators have
voiced the need for incorporating exibility and
modularity in the curriculum design [38]. This
requires additional design eorts involving critical
examination of local needs and subsequent provisioning of venues for local adaptation within the
prescribed curriculum [39]. In our study, we used
ve strands (apparatus, assessment, standards,
activities, and technology) to analyze the dierences
in the prescribed and enacted curricula. Future
studies could cater to identication of locals needs
along these strands. Further research investigating
the enactment of prescribed curriculum in the light
of local needs will aid in theorizing a more concrete
framework for integrated STEM curricula development, facilitating the proper implementation of
research-based curricula into practice.
In addition, a paucity of alignment research has
focused on engineering curricula in secondary
schools. As noted previously, not knowing whether
students in engineering courses are aorded the
opportunity to learn instructional content for
which they might be held accountable leaves fundamental questions of educational equity and the
validity of test score interpretations unanswered.
Currently, no engineering accountability tests exist,
yet engineering courses at the secondary level and an
increased emphasis on STEM education nationally
assure this is an issue on the horizon.
The present study used a conceptual and methodological framework that will allow researchers to
address some of the previously mentioned concerns.
The need for additional research is underscored by
the results of this study. Specically, more classrooms, with more teachers and some additional
resources, would greatly leverage the results of the
current work. First, alignment between the prescribed and enacted curricula for the current study
ranged from low to moderate depending on the
strand. This raises the question of adequate opportunity to learn engineering for average students and
thus warrants replication with a larger, more diverse
sample. Second, the introduction of the prescribed
curriculum provides an additional avenue for future
alignment research. Results here indicate that the
teachers planned curriculum provides an additional area for future alignment research. In eect,
results of the teachers planned curriculum can be
understood as a mediatory step between the prescribed and enacted curricula. For instance, future
work may nd the planned curriculum to be a good
starting point when studying the impact of professional development on teacher alignment of curriculum. Third, whereas perfect alignment between

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the prescribed and enacted curriculum is not possible, if alignment is desired, it will not simply occur
with e-mails or having resources available via the
Internet. A conscious eort and monitoring must
exist to provide timely and important advice and
support in areas where alignment is a challenge.
This iterative process need not be overly intrusive or
paternalistic, but results indicate it does need to be
planned, purposeful, and reective.

6. Conclusion
The emphasis of K-12 engineering as a platform for
attaining STEM teaching and learning objectives
has led to development of engineering based integrated STEM curricula. This study examined how a
prescribed curriculum gets modied when enacted
in an actual classroom setting by a K-12 teacher.
Our ndings indicate the inuence resource constraints, faculty disciplinary background and professional experience on the enactment of prescribed
curriculum. Although our study is limited in terms
of generalizability, the ndings are in line with the
intent of qualitative research which aims for indepth examination and analytical generalization
than replicability of results. Our study provides an
example of how a richer theoretical conceptualization of the curriculum can be developed and how
data can be analyzed when teacher logs are used to
collect data on teaching and curricula implementation. In particular, this paper supports moving
beyond notions of the enacted curriculum as the
overlap between what is taught and what is tested in
order to measure more theoretically relevant aspects
of the curriculum, for example, the ve strands
identied in this study. Future work examining the
enactment of prescribed curriculum will aid in
identifying other aspects of the curriculum that
lead to variations between the two curriculums
and subsequently developing strategies for better
alignment and STEM integration.
AcknowledgmentsThis material is based upon work supported
by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL0833726 and under Grant No. MSP-0831811. The opinions
expressed here are those of the authors alone.

Anthony J. Petrosino et al.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.
14.

15.
16.
17.

18.

19.
20.

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467.

Anthony J. Petrosino is a Learning Scientist and an Associate Professor of Science Technology Engineering and
Mathematics (STEM) Education at The University of Texas at Austin. He is co-founder of the UTeach Natural Sciences
Program. His research is focused on the development of expertise in the STEM disciplines, particularly within engineering.
He is co-PI on the NSF funded project that created the Engineer Your World curriculum. He holds a Masters from
Teachers College, Columbia University and a doctorate from Vanderbilt University.
Katherine A. Gustafson is a mechanical engineer and certied secondary STEM teacher. She holds a M.A. in STEM
Education with a focus on engineering education.
Prateek Shekhar is a PhD candidate in the Department of Mechanical Education at the University of Texas at Austin. His
research is focused on the adoption of research based curriculum and instructional strategies in engineering classrooms. He
holds a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from University of Southern California and B.S. in Electronics and Communication
Engineering from India.

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