Elaborating Nature of Engineering Through Family Resemblance Approach

Abstract

With the release of Framework for K-12 Science Education (National Research Council, 2012) and Next Generation Science Standards (2013) documents, engineering was integrated into science teaching. With that emphasis, teachers require to incorporate engineering practices and nature of engineering into their practice. Most of the attention has been given to the iterative engineering design process through which engineering solve a client's problem. However, understanding of what engineers do and how they do it, it is necessary to focus on nature of engineering. Given the limited emphasis put of the nature of engineering construct, the goal of this paper is to utilize the family resemblance approach lenses to characterize the construct based on Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical work. We aim to frame the nature of engineering and draw a holistic view of engineering by elaborating on cognitive, epistemic, and social-institutional aspects of engineering for K-12 students, which provides a comprehensible theoretical justification of the construct.