Preliminary evidence suggests EiE Families is effective
Like all of our products, the EiE Families resources went through multiple rounds of research, development, testing, and improvement. Results of formative and summative data collection suggest that activities supported families’ understanding of engineering as a discipline and positively impacted perceptions of themselves as engineers. Families also agreed that these activities inspired them to have conversations about engineering and the human-made world.
We are always looking for families and educators from across the country to test new activities and provide us with feedback! If you’d be interested in playing an important role in our process, sign up to review materials as we develop them.

Families Agreement Before and After Engaging with Engineering At-Home Activities. Blue dashed bars show agreement before doing activity and green bars after doing activity. 71% of families understood what engineers do before the activity, 98% after. 55% felt confident talking about engineering with their kids beforehand, 95% afterwards. 48% of children believed they could engineer beforehand, 90% after the activity. Beforehand, 48% of families felt confident solving engineering problems together, and afterwards 93% did.

Families Agreement with Statements After Engaging with Engineering At-Home Activities. After doing Engineering At Home projects, 88% agreed with the statement “I felt like we were engineering while doing the activity as a family.” 83% said “The activity inspired us to have conversations as a family about engineering or the human-made world.” And 83% agreed that “This activity inspired us to look for more engineering projects to do at home.”
Coming soon! EiE conducts a large-scale national study of our EiE Families resources.
During the 2022/23 academic year, with generous funding from Overdeck Family Foundation and in collaboration with the Harvard Strategic Data Project, we’ll will be running a rigorous, Tier 1 ESSA-aligned evaluation of our EiE Families Engineering At-home resources. Our researchers will be recruiting 100 educators and 350+ families to try EiE Families activities at home with their children. The team is measuring the following outcomes:
- Students’ and families’ excitement about STEM
- Students’ and families’ sense that they can engineer
- Students’ knowledge of engineering
- Families’ connections to their schools
Check this page for results in spring 2023!