Five Years of Construction Kits in Primary Schools: Evaluating the Current State of a Project to Facilitate Technology Education

Abstract

In March 2018, metal construction kits were distributed to all elementary schools in Rhineland-Palatinate as part of the project called "Technikkiste" [translation from German: technology box] to promote STEM education. At the end of the year 2018, three more expansion sets followed. So far, no requests have been made to schools, even after five years of the project's start as to how and whether they use this material. Therefore, an evaluation study was carried out in 2023, which was intended to find out the current usage behaviour with the kits as well as to get an impression of the teachers regarding the in-service training that took place as part of the project. For that 921 elementary schools were asked to participate in an online survey. 69 answered the questionnaire some more gave informal feedback. The results from the survey already show that only about 70% of the responders are even aware of the metal construction kits. Around 30% stated, that they were not familiar with the metal construction kits. In addition, only about 43% of the participants indicated that the kits have ever been used in the classroom at their school. One of the main reasons why they do not use the constructions kits is that the school has allegedly not received a kit or has too few for classroom use. This brief excerpt from the survey results already shows that the promotion project is not showing the success that the Ministry of Education had hoped for.