In order to produce viable engineering designs, engineers must gather, correctly interpret, synthesize, and apply accurate and sufficient information from a variety of sources. The information gathering process is complex even for the most experienced engineers, but this process can be even more daunting to adolescents who often may not understand advanced scientific and technical texts due to their challenging vocabulary and syntax. In sum, adolescents-especially those who are relatively new to the English language-may benefit from tailored instructional supports as they gather and interpret information while engineering.4 Before these instructional supports can be developed, however, researchers must first understand adolescents' engineering design activity to identify possible ways in which teachers can build on their students' existing strengths while meeting their specific needs.
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