Engaging in engineering tasks can help students learn science concepts. However, many engineering tasks lead students to focus more on the success of their construction than on learning science content, which can hurt students’ ability to learn and transfer scientific principles from them. Two empirical studies investigate how content-focused learning goals and contrasting cases affect how students learn and transfer science concepts from engineering activities. High school students were given an engineering challenge, which involved understanding and applying center of mass concepts. In Study 1, 86 students were divided into four conditions where both goals (content learning vs. outcome) and instructional scaffolds (contrasting cases vs. no cases) were manipulated during the engineering task. Students with both content-focused learning goals and contrasting cases were better able to transfer scientific principles to a new task. Meanwhile, regardless of condition, students who noticed the deep structure in the cases demonstrated greater learning. A second study tried to replicate the goal manipulation findings, while addressing some limitations of Study 1. In Study 2, 78 students received the same engineering task with contrasting cases, while half the students received a learning goal, and half received an outcome goal. Students who were given content-focused learning goals valued science learning resources more and were better able to transfer scientific principles to novel situations on a test. Across conditions, the more students valued resources, the more they learned, and students who noticed the deep structure transferred more. This research underscores the importance of content-focused learning goals for supporting transfer of scientific principles from engineering tasks, when students have access to adequate instructional scaffolds.

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你的目标是什么？制定工程任务目标以使学习者专注于基础科学的重要性

从事工程任务可以帮助学生学习科学概念。但是，许多工程任务使学生更多地关注其建筑的成功而不是学习科学内容，这可能会损害学生学习和向他们传授科学原理的能力。两项实证研究调查了以内容为中心的学习目标和对比案例如何影响学生从工程活动中学习和转移科学概念的方式。高中学生面临工程挑战，其中涉及理解和应用大众观念中心。在研究1中，将86名学生分为四个条件，在工程任务期间操纵了目标（内容学习与结果）和指导性支架（对比案例与无案例）。既具有针对内容的学习目标，又具有对比案例的学生能够更好地将科学原理转化为一项新任务。同时，无论情况如何，注意到案例深层次结构的学生都表现出了更好的学习能力。第二项研究试图复制目标操纵的发现，同时解决了研究1的某些局限性。在研究2中，有78名学生接受了相同的工程任务，但案例不同，一半学生获得了学习目标，一半学生获得了结果目标。被赋予以内容为中心的学习目标的学生更重视科学学习资源，并且能够更好地将科学原理转化为测试中的新情况。在各种情况下，学生对资源的重视程度越高，他们学到的知识就越多，而注意到深层结构的学生则转移的更多。