Capability
Can young people recognise and use critical thinking and Engineering Habits of Mind?
RC Vision measures whether young people develop recognised critical-thinking capabilities, see those capabilities in themselves and connect them to wider interests, choices and future possibilities.
Impact is not the number of cars built or laps completed. We look for changes in how young people think, how they understand their capabilities and how confidently they can connect those capabilities to the future.
Can young people recognise and use critical thinking and Engineering Habits of Mind?
Do they have stronger evidence that technical thinking and problem-solving belong to them?
Can they connect strengths, interests and opportunities to possible next steps?
The model combines embodied engineering, immediate feedback, mentor-mediated reflection and future-of-work learning. Each layer matters: activity without reflection may be memorable, but it is less likely to become a capability young people can name and transfer.
A meaningful practical challenge creates attention and participation.
Young people practise critical thinking in a real system.
Mentors help them recognise that thinking as evidence about themselves.
They connect it to interests, pathways and choices in a changing world.
Effect sizes describe the scale of change observed within a measured cohort. Statistical significance describes how unlikely it is that the result arose by chance under the study assumptions.
A statistically significant improvement in pupils’ understanding of how engineers analyse and solve problems.
The strongest measured change: a large improvement in understanding how to navigate choices and future pathways.
A statistically significant improvement in understanding how technology and wider change affect working life.
A significant shift towards seeing a technical industry as innovative, diverse and relevant.
These findings are specific to the evaluated cohorts and near-term measurement points. They should not be read as guaranteed results for every participant or as evidence that one programme directly determines eventual employment.
Where programme design allows, the same outcomes are measured before and after participation to identify change within the cohort.
We report the size of change and its statistical context, rather than relying only on positive percentages or selected quotations.
Measures are interpreted alongside participant voice, observation, cohort context and what was actually delivered.
Evaluation suggests some pupils first build an intellectual map of engineering thinking and the future of work before expressing personal confidence. Others show a more immediate rise in confidence and self-concept. That matters for programme design: quieter conceptual change should not be mistaken for no change.
Good evaluation asks who changed, how—and what the programme should do differently next time.
“Learning by doing it yourself, and making mistakes, helps you more. Because if you make a mistake you actually understand how to fix it.”Munty, Year 8
“My skills are broader than I thought—not just based on my subjects or grades, but based on what I enjoyed.”Mehgun, Year 11
If you are considering a school programme, employer partnership, funding opportunity or evaluation collaboration, we will share the evidence relevant to that decision.
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