Engineering an evaluation for a growing rocket program: Lessons learned

This project involved examining the construction of an evaluation for a high school rocket program. The goal was to create an evaluation that would demonstrate program effectiveness in terms of student satisfaction and confidence in their ability to apply pre-engineering concepts in the building of rockets. This case study provides an in-depth study of the challenges and milestones faced by the evaluation team. One challenge was understanding the unique engineering design-based curriculum. Another challenge was exploring the impact of a pure inquiry-based teaching program. One key milestone reached was creating a participatory environment for the program evaluation. The result was an evaluation regime that was useful to the rocket program stakeholders.