The 40th International Pupils’ Attitudes Towards Technology Conference Proceedings 2023
This journal is for the proceedings of the 40th International Pupils’ Attitudes Towards Technology Conference, hosted in Liverpool at Liverpool John Moores University in 2023.
This journal provides immediate open access to its content with no submission or publications fees. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a LicenceCreative Commons Attribution License that allows others to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full text of works in this journal. It also allows others to remix, adapt and build upon the work, as long as credit is given to the author(s).
Copyright (c) 2023 Matt McLain http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Copyright (c) 2023 Sarah Davies, Matt McLain , Alison Hardy, David Morrison-Love http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Artificers, satisficers and optimisers: Echoes of Simon and ‘ways of being’ in Design and Technology Education
Herbert Simon created the neologism ‘satisficing’ in order to address a particular issue he found regarding problem solving in organisations. His work also included such concepts as ‘bounded rationality’ and has influenced many areas of human endeavour including, at times, the theorising of problem-solving in Design and Technology (D&T) education. The paper gives an overview of Herbert Simon’s work and neologism, drawing on his landmark text The Sciences of the Artificial (Simon, 1969/1996). Context is offered with comparisons between the (positivistic) problem-solving of the technical-rational 1960s zeitgeist and subsequent human-centred design practices and genres. Imagining three ‘ways of being’ in the field of D&T, the paper explores how the roles of artificer, satisficer and optimiser can play out for pupils, teachers and D&T’s problematic (sic) curriculum. Whilst echoes of Simon’s work can still be found in D&T education, and the three roles can contribute to the design repertoire of pupils and teachers alike, it is argued that any application of them should be understood for their limitations as ‘problem-solving’ cannot equate designing – in theory or in practice.
Copyright (c) 2023 Steve Keirl http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
This poster describes Electronic Sentences (ES). This is a suite of software and hardware tools, along with supporting curriculum materials, that uses high-level electronic elements to allow young children to easily develop age-appropriate systems to solve real-world problems. As the name suggests, systems are created by assembling grammatically correct sentences that are scanned to create a corresponding electrical system. ES thus helps children develop literacy skills, logical thinking, design thinking and systems thinking. ES is designed to be used in conjunction with a wide range of modelling materials, which teachers will select with an eye to suitability for the children using the system. ES is being developed by a US/UK team. The target age for ES is anywhere between, in England, EYFS and Key Stage 1 and, in the US from grades pre-k-5. The design has focussed on useability for the youngest children in these ranges, i.e., children from 4 years on, while retaining attractiveness for older children, with the acknowledgement that teachers will use their judgement about when best to introduce ES. Limited trials of a prototype, fully working, system have taken place in US classrooms. This paper will, along with describing the ES system and its design aims, report on initial trials in English classrooms. It will explore the effectiveness of the system in achieving its multiple aims (the development of literacy skills, logical thinking, design thinking and systems thinking) and, in the light of these trials suggest necessary developments in the various elements of hardware, software and courseware that will be required before the product is made widely available.
Copyright (c) 2023 Torben Steeg, Ben Sedman http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Technology Education Is Important for Achieving Sustainable Development
In 2015 all 193 United Nations Member States agreed on 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with the purpose to end poverty, ensure prosperity, and protect the planet. Technology and sustainable development are intertwined. The term "double-edged sword" has often been used to describe technology, as it can be both helpful and harmful. But to what extent is technology significant for sustainable development and what content can technology education have in relation to sustainable development? This study examines what technology content can be discerned in the sustainable development goals, SDGs, in order to detect possible content for technology education. The 17 SDGs include 169 targets since every SDG are defined with "Outcome targets" and "means of implementation targets". All 169 SDGs targets were analyzed through content analysis. A category system was developed from the definition of technology by Rossouw et.al (2010) and DiGironimos’s (2011) to discern technology content in the SDGs. The results show that the achievement of each and every 17 Sustainable Development Goals in one way or another relies on our use of technology and our development of technology. Teaching with a sustainability perspective creates meaningful content for technology education, where current news and topics can be a starting point. Such teaching can provide students with necessary knowledge towards making well-grounded decisions based on facts, as both consumers and global citizens.
Copyright (c) 2023 Maria Sundler, Susanne Engström, Annica Gullberg, Helena Lennholm http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Teaching K-8 Children about the Internet Will Be Difficult
In the contemporary society, children need to become competent internet users. Previous studies suggested that in order to achieve this goal, it helps if children understand basics of how internet works. However, these studies also indicated that children’s knowledge about internet’s functioning is patchy. Furthermore, children possess many misconceptions and existing research does not examine how to boost their understanding of the internet’s functioning. Here, we present a mixed-method study, in which children (Grade 4, 6, 8; N = 50 + 50 + 38): a) were interviewed about how the internet works; b) half of them (random assignment) was explained this topic during a 50-min-long 1:1 tutoring session (with activating tasks); c) were interviewed again four months later. The interviews and the teaching session examined/promoted understanding of the following concepts: servers, wifi routers, network routers, wireless vs. wire connection, storage of data on the internet, digital traces, and cookies; among others. The interviews are now being analysed through thematic and frequency analyses. Preliminary findings corroborate previous findings about misconceptions and are consistent with ‘knowledge in pieces’ theories of knowledge representations. Typical reasoning among children about the internet structure includes satellites and central computers/towers. Only expert children know about distributed, server-like storage. Children understand the internet primarily through their personal experiences, only most knowledgeable children view it as a global network with a complex internal, but only vaguely understood, structure. The teaching session promoted understanding in short term, but much less so in a long term. Four months later, only few children retained knowledge about network routers, some about servers. Children tended to return to their prior misconceptions and their post-understanding remained patchy. Some held both prior misconceptions and contradictory new ideas. Altogether, our results suggest that teaching K-8 children about the internet functioning will be challenging and specific approaches, such as those capitalizing on activating children’s prior knowledge, will be required.
Copyright (c) 2023 Cyril Brom, Anna Yaghobová , Anna Drobná, Marek Urban http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Effective professional development to enhance the teaching of Design and Technology: an on-going small-scale research study
High-quality Design and Technology (D&T) education is essential for pupils in primary schools. Professional development (PD) is a crucial tool that offers primary school teachers the ability to maintain high-quality teaching in order to improve pupil outcomes. The National Curriculum in England and Wales requires children in KS1 and KS2 to be hands-on and creative through the designing and making of products within their D&T learning. Currently, a local authority (LA) in an outer London borough, works with teacher facilitators to run PD virtual networks. Teachers who coordinate and lead on specific subjects within a school are invited by the LA; however, through summative feedback, conversations around designing, delivering and assessing D&T have been viewed as challenging when undertaking PD networks online. Initial research has shown that teachers within the borough lack confidence and feel their skills and knowledge required to teach D&T effectively are limited. This paper reports on research-led guidance reports to support the designing and evaluating of effective PD. This ongoing mixed method research study will involve the participants’ initial feedback with regards to current PD practices. Subsequently, participants will give feedback on two bespoke face-to-face PD classes led by the University. The continuation of virtual PD sessions, run by the LA, will run alongside. The data collection method will be through questionnaires that are designed around current research in effective PD. From this study, the research acquired will assist the University and LA in developing/refining effective D&T PD while also helping D&T teachers to cultivate sustained lifelong learning goals.
Copyright (c) 2023 Janine Laura Pavlis http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“If D&T wasn’t so easy, I wouldn’t be so good at it”: Nonverbal Ability and Confidence
At the heart of this paper is a belief that the English education system enacts systemic discrimination against nonverbally intelligent students by teaching and assessing non-academic subjects via academic means. This paper presents action research that focuses on students with a nonverbal bias, attempting to boost their self-efficacy (Bandura et al., 1999), self-concept (Bong & Clark, 1999), and discusses how these may be hurt by current D&T assessments. The study examines the comparative perception of intelligence levels needed to succeed in school subjects, alongside the types of intelligences assessed within English educational policy. To boost intelligences specific to design, this research took a two-pronged approach; verbally promoting high-attaining students and presenting their outstanding book work in the spirit of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory (Gardner, 2006), and testing for “eductive” problem-solving intelligences (Raven et al., 1994) at the beginning of each class in a 6-week Scheme of Work with Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM), logged publicly on a leaderboard in the classroom. The results reveal a positive shift in whole-class perceptions of intelligence needed for D&T, and increased confidence levels among students on the leaderboards, alongside decreased confidence levels of those not on the leaderboards. The study acknowledges limitations in the methodology, particularly an overemphasis on RPM, which subjugated other aspects of intelligence in design, and my own inadvertent acculturation into the quantitative testing culture. The conclusion acknowledges failures in the research, yet emphasises the need for a cultural shift in English state schools to recognise and respect the non-academic intelligences required to succeed in creative fields like D&T. It highlights the inadvertent discrimination against nonverbally intelligent students due to the dominance of academic culture and advocates for a more tailored approach to D&T assessment which better reflects abilities used in real-world design industries.
Self-efficacy in Design and Technology Education
Self-concept in Design and Technology Education
Copyright (c) 2023 Alexander Augustus Greenhalgh http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Our presentation discusses the current phase of a practitioner enquiry project to explore ways of supporting undergraduate technology education ITE students to inform their classroom practice with theory, research, and academic knowledge. The practitioner enquiry centres on our work in teacher education with students using a model created by Morrison-Love to scaffold the development of pedagogic reasoning: the Adaptive Subject Pedagogy Model (ASPM). In the first phases of our project, we explored students’ challenges in relating theory to practice and developing pedagogic reasoning using focus groups with students and analysis of course assignments. Continued use of the model showed students improving in their connections across knowledges, but many still struggle with the development of coherent evidence-led pedagogic reasoning. Here, we will present findings from our analysis of a series of mediated interviews we undertook with students to understand more about how they were reasoning through engagement with the ASPM. During the interviews, student submissions were used as a mediating artefact to scaffold questioning and discussion. The submissions each capture one full cycle of the ASPM for a topic chosen by that student and an associated lesson plan in a form of their choosing. Use of student submissions in this way provided a tangible focus to help reveal more of the students underlying thinking. Here, we will discuss insights about the knowledges drawn upon, considerations and decisions made by students in the process of creating their own subject pedagogy and what this means for our own practice as teacher educators. We will conclude by reflecting more broadly about what our evidence to date about the ASPM suggests given that, despite our best efforts, some students still struggle to create pedagogically reasoned lesson plans. We discuss implications for future work with ASPM and for our own practice as teacher educators.
Copyright (c) 2023 David Morrison-Love, Fiona Patrick http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
A DEVELOPING PROJECT: INVESTIGATING FUTURE FORMS OF DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION
It is regularly reported at previous PATT conferences that design and technology (D&T) in England is in decline. Despite initiatives, new curricula and government lobbying, the D&T juggernaut seems to be on the brink of collapse (according to some), with lowering numbers of pupils studying D&T, fewer teachers, less resources, and low status in schools. Pulling the D&T juggernaut back from the brink requires more than one approach and most of the recent ones have been led by national organisations. This paper reports on the first phase of a new project, led by practising teachers, that takes a new approach. In simple terms, the aim of the project is to redesign D&T, not so much the content but the curriculum delivery and framework. We have started by identifying the unresolved issues that are causing curriculum tensions and incoherence in the D&T community. In this paper we are reporting on the first phase of our design project, where we used a Delphi Study to identify the controversial D&T curriculum issues that need resolving before we can design a D&T curriculum. Nineteen teachers completed the first survey. Analysing of the survey data reduced the number of questions to 24. These were circulated to a self-selecting expert group (participants who completed the first survey). A second round of analysis has clarified that there are 18 unresolved questions and contentions issues that need to be debated. The next step is to invite teachers to respond to these issues; these responses will then be shared in a publication, debated, and shaped into a curriculum design specification. Finally, teachers will be invited to share at a future workshop or conference their curriculum design ideas that meet this specification.
Copyright (c) 2023 Andrew Halliwell, Amanda Mason, Alison Hardy, Ciaran Ellis http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Implementing Engineering Based STEM Programs in High School Classrooms in the Republic of Korea
In 2022, South Korea announced new national curriculum that implement it from 2023. High school curriculum is about to fully implement the high school credit system, which allows students to choose subjects that suit their needs and career paths. In South Korea, technology education in middle school is a common compulsory subject, but high school technology education is a selective subject and has the name of technology and home-economics. High school technology education experiences difficulties that are not selected in many schools due to the confusion of identity of subject names and social negative perception of technology. The purpose of this is to develop an engineering education program that can be used in high school technology education and to verify its effect on students. To achieve the purpose of this study, an engineering education program was developed and students’ changes through the program were measured. This study was based on a single-group pre-post test design and was conducted with 96 10th grade students. As a result of this study, students’ engineering interest, engineering self-efficacy, and engineering career awareness were statistically significantly improved through the developed engineering education program. This study provides great implications for actively including and utilizing engineering in technology education. In addition, it will give great implication for the direction and program development of high school technology education.
Copyright (c) 2023 Hyuksoo Kwon, Jaehoon Jeong, Yubin Lee, Eojin Kim http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Authenticity in integrated STEM education – boon or fantasy?
Engineering design and technological modelling have been argued as valid premises from which to increase authenticity, relevance and create bridges between the STEM disciplines while maintaining subject integrity. Previous research indicates that projects which emulate how engineers work has the potential of both integrating STEM disciplines and being authentic. At the same time, earlier research also cautions that few integrated STEM projects consider students’ interests and their everyday contexts. The aim of this study is to investigate the implementation of an integrated STEM project in the Technology Programme at a Swedish upper secondary school. The studied STEM project involves students’ designs for improving their physical school environment in terms of well-being, feasibility, and sustainability. Data collection consisted of participatory observations, as well as teacher and student interviews. The results are presented in terms of three themes, namely (1) cooperation and real-life application are fundamental for authentic learning; (2) using models and modelling for communicating design ideas are central to authentic technology and engineering; and (3) integration of STEM content and methods do not draw on all four disciplines. It is concluded that there might be easily accessible pathways to promote integrated STEM and authenticity, such as utilizing the school environment as a starting point. However, formally implementing authentic practices remain a challenge even though a majority of teachers are enthusiastic about real-world relevance in design projects. Integrated STEM in the design project mostly included technology and engineering content, and aspects of science and mathematics albeit to a lower degree, which made simultaneous integration of all STEM disciplines a challenging task.
Copyright (c) 2023 Jonas Hallström, Charlotta Nordlöf, Per Norström, Konrad Schönborn http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
The challenges of implementing a spatial ability intervention at secondary level
Spatial skills development has been widely examined throughout the literature, with evidence suggesting many cognitive abilities are malleable and can be improved through targeted solutions. Some previous examples of intervention studies have been shown to reduce the gap between genders, and those of a lower socio-economic status where the training increased spatial ability, as well as in discipline-specific educational performance. These findings align with many national agendas for STEM diversity, which strive to increase participation and performance of such under-represented groups in STEM. With a lot of research being conducted around spatial skill development within a university level setting, or outside of a formal educational context completely, the applicability of such training interventions in a secondary level school context is unclear. With secondary level education aiming to develop many cognitive abilities, including spatial ability as outlined in curriculum documents, the implementation of such an intervention could improve student outcomes and add value to the educational experience of the students. With the time-sensitive nature of secondary level schooling, there are many concerns around the amount of time and effort that needs to be invested to successfully implement such an intervention. Through the piloting of a spatial training intervention, this paper focusses on the development of spatial skills within an upper secondary level setting in Ireland with 358 students aged 14-16 enrolled in the Transition Year programme and their 10 teachers. This paper examines the challenges of implementation of a specific spatial skills intervention, through a variety of lenses, including pedagogy based and performance based, and offers considerations for future research in the area. By looking from both teacher and student perspectives, we explore the issues encountered and offer suggestions to researchers conducting similar studies at secondary level.
Copyright (c) 2023 Liam Maquet, Urša Benedičič, Rónán Dunbar, Jeffrey Buckley, Gavin Duffy, Sheryl Sorby http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Secondary Students Intrinsic Motivation during Multidisciplinary STEAM projects
Education is usually organized along the line of mono-disciplines. It is however argued that a focus on solving problems, designing and advising for clients will be more meaningful for students and will enhance their motivation for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subjects and careers. Therefore, the Dutch network of Technasia schools have positioned Integrative STEAM projects for clients central in their curriculum. Usually these projects are related to one discipline and conducted by students with a science-oriented profile. In a pilot, 8 schools developed and conducted Multidisciplinary STEAM Projects for pupils in grade 9 to 11 using social cooperative approaches such Jigsaw and perspective-based question prompts that scaffold multi-disciplinary ways of thinking. The self-determination theory links intrinsic motivation with the presence of autonomy, relatedness, perceived competences. The theory also links the way students perceive the relevance of their learning activities to motivation. Therefore the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) questionnaire was used to determine half-way and after the project of 182 students their interest and enjoyment as well perceived competence, effort, pressure, perceived choice, value/usefulness and relatedness. For relatedness to peers and to the client the original statements from IMI were adapted. The results show that intrinsic motivation was slightly positive on average, while relatedness between teammates was positive and pressure low. Students experienced working from different disciplines as valuable. It is suggested to develop new items to measure relatedness to the client as those based on the original IMI where not able to measure this construct well.
Self-determination theory, Motivation, Secondary Design and Technology Education
Copyright (c) 2023 Remke Klapwijk http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tackling food poverty: The role and importance of food education in United Kingdom schools
Copyright (c) 2023 Marion Rutland, Ruth Seabrook http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Problematising and unpacking the uncertainty of design within technology education
Technology education is a growing field internationally where developments are being made to conform to new agendas and goals of today’s society. The role of technology education is to improve the quality of human life through making meaningful advancements to our lives and the world we live in, which is underpinned by an innate ability that all humans possess, the ability to design. Developing designerly members of society that have strong design capability is identified as being of upmost importance, particularly within education. Fostering designerly students effectively and successfully is a complex domain and is evident within a large literature base, where researchers are trying to understand design, what it should look like in practice, and how it can be successfully developed and fostered within education. Design is a key component within technology education curricula, where teachers and students are required to engage in design tasks and activities in an attempt to foster an ability to design. Design is highly complex in nature and with ambiguity within the literature surrounding the construct of design ability, what defines the design process and what cognitive processes are necessary to design, leaves educators and students in an area of unknown. In this paper, a theoretical model is presented and utilised to problematise and unpack the uncertainty of design within technology education. The unknown of designing is worse than the problems themselves, which is why this paper offers an initial attempt at identifying these problems through the lens of understanding, teaching and learning designing. Results offer insight into the problems and challenges associated with designing in technology education with the aim and objective to identify future research areas. Key words: Design, Designing, Technology Education, Problematising
Copyright (c) 2023 Manus McDyer, Jeffrey Buckley, Rónán Dunbar, Nicolaas Blom, Niall Seery http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Preliminary study of how 21st-Century Skills are developed during a participatory user-centred curriculum intervention at Key Stage 3 in Design and Technology
Whilst designing ‘for and with’ end-users has been commonplace in the professional design space since the 1970s, there is a lack of research evidence of empathic or human-centred design in primary and secondary education. This paper presents a preliminary study of the ‘Solving Genuine Problems for Authentic Users Project’ conducted to explore the effect that involving end-users throughout the design process has on students and their outcomes as part of their Key Stage 3 D&T education. Sixteen 12-13-year-old students at a secondary school in England worked in teams of four to with a member of the school catering staff to develop a prototype, aimed towards solving a problem that they identified together. The student researchers utilised agency in the research methods they employed to gain a better understanding of the design context. Data included a pre and post questionnaire to measure students’ creative potential which helped to improve an understanding of how empathy, a recognised 21st-Century Skill, was developed over the course of the study. Other data collected included photographs of student work and the students’ field notes. Data was thematically coded to offer a narrative of the findings. This study contributes to the growing understanding of 21st-Century Skill development in a D&T context, as well as the facilitation of face-to-face collaboration with end-users at an early stage of secondary design and technology education.
Copyright (c) 2023 Philip A. Jones http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Supporting Initial Teacher Education Students Assessment Literacy and Capability Development
Recent curricular reform in Ireland has utilised classroom-based assessments as part of the national assessment strategy at the junior level in post-primary education. This calls for teachers to exercise their judgement in relation to their pupils' capability which is recorded for the certified national award of the Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement (JCPA). Ensuring effective assessment in this regard requires the development of assessment literacy and capability in the teaching cohort which starts on the continuum of teacher development at the initial teacher education (ITE) phase. Teacher judgement in assessment is reliant on multiple factors that impact on the assessment outcome. It is therefore important to design components of ITE programmes that provide opportunity to strategically develop this capability for implementation in practice. The case study presented in this paper presents an initial analysis of the practices and experiences of (n=87) Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students as they engage in a peer assessment activity that is part of an assessment literacy and capability development strategy on a technology education ITE programme. This was facilitated through the use of Adaptive Comparative Judgement sessions (ACJ). In these sessions, the participants engaged in the establishment of assessment criteria and implemented them in the holistic assessment of peers' work through the ACJ method along with providing formative feedback and making a summative judgement of the quality of the work. The findings present the usefulness of ACJ in providing pre-service teachers a space to develop assessment literacy and capability through the active and experiential learning approach taken.
Copyright (c) 2023 Donal Brandon Canty, Nicolaas Blom, Sean O Connor, Maria McCarthy http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Situating spatial ability development in the Craft and Technology curricula of Swedish compulsory education
Spatial ability has been shown to have a causal relationship with students’ success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. While an abundance of research has investigated how spatial ability development is and could be integrated to science, engineering, and mathematics curricula, little attempt has been made to date to situate where spatial ability manifests in technology curricula. This paper uses document analysis strategy to examine the locations of spatial ability related learning outcomes within the craft and technology curricula in Swedish compulsory education. This paper employs a qualitative inductive approach to analyse the policy document from the Swedish National Agency for Education. We argue that spatial ability development manifests in the Swedish craft and technology subject curricula along two dimensions. First, the curricula are underpinned by visual components, which are graphical, pictorial, and manufactured components. Second, along with the visual components, the curricula are delivered with the aim of constructing students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge. While technology curriculum dominantly cultivates students’ conceptual and procedural knowledge by interacting with the graphical and manufactured components such as sketches and objects, the craft curriculum is taught in a more diverse way where students are not only required to deal with graphical and manufactured components but also to involve in various pictorial components that convey cultural and historical meanings by craft products.
Copyright (c) 2023 Ting-Jun LIN, Jeffrey Buckley, Lena Gumaelius, Ernest Ampadu http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Masculinities and Femininities in the Design and Technology Classroom
Design and Technology is a secondary school subject that is perceived by students to be masculine and has been documented by the literature as an environment that can be considered off-putting to non-laddish masculinities and femininities. This paper posits that dominant forms of masculinity and femininity, and the characteristics that make up these forms, are highly dependent on the context in which they are being observed. Furthermore, the paper presents the findings of a small, qualitative group interview with four girls at a private secondary school in a deprived area of East Anglia. The participants were asked about their perceptions of whether specific tasks, artefacts (e.g., clock), and projects were masculine, feminine, or neutral to document which parts of the subject are most associated with masculinity. The study found that the participants' perceived confidence in the workshop to be a masculine trait, as well as any tasks or projects related to electronics or robotics. Conversely, working with textiles and creating similar projects were considered feminine. Tasks and projects that focused on problem solving, and using materials other than electronics, robotics and textiles were neutral. The paper also found that general practical tasks and building projects were considered neutral, though the participants perceived that their (masculine) teachers did not believe they were competent.
Copyright (c) 2023 Olexandra Solomka http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploring the Use of Peer and Self-Assessment as a Pedagogical Tool in UK Secondary Design Education.
In this case study, a collaborative and social-constructivist approach to secondary Design and Technology teaching is explored. Self and peer-assessment interventions are employed as a pedagogical tool for increasing student attainment, knowledge gain and self-efficacy. Within schools, students learn by interacting with their peers; they help each other identify their strengths, address their weaknesses, and develop metacognitive skills. As a construct for aiding knowledge sharing, peer assessment can be significantly beneficial as it allows students to evaluate the work of their peers and provide constructive feedback within a supported environment. This research presents student perceptions on strategies designed to facilitate self-assessment, and peer-assessment as a pedagogical tool and investigates the order these strategies are employed within the classroom. Eighteen, year 11 design students aged 15-16 from across two classes took part in four ‘peer-learning’ sessions containing both self and peer-assessments. These sessions were spread across different stages of the student’s design process: research, iteration, design development and testing and evaluation. The project began at the start of the 2022-23 academic year and concluded at the end of the second term. Each session approaches these assessment exercises with different methods and finishes with a questionnaire to enable comparison. The results gathered show an increase in student attainment, self-efficacy, and a greater understanding of the assessment criteria when students complete their design coursework. A sequence of activities for employing self and peer-assessment within design education is established and presented. This research aims to share evidence of self and peer-assessment as a pedagogical tool when students are completing their design coursework. In presenting the benefits and barriers of this method, teachers will be able to use and adapt it within their own classes
Copyright (c) 2023 Andrew Joseph Thurston Halliwell http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Subject Knowledge in D&T Teacher Education
Determining the key subject knowledge that should underpin D&T Teacher education in England has never been easy. The fundamental range of the subject (with a scope of materials that includes food, textiles, engineered materials, computational systems… used to design and make products across a limitless extent of context), continuing developments in many of the technologies that underpin it, the breadth of experience that entrants to D&T teaching bring with them, the heterogeneity of approaches to D&T subject matter in schools (including the move in many English schools to teaching some of the above areas, especially textiles, through Art & Design) and ever changing statutory and examination requirements all have their influence. In the past the D&T Association (2003) has provided guidance, but, as noted by Martin as long ago as 2008, this guidance has lost relevance as the landscape has changed. There are, of course, in addition to all the above, broader debates that are current about the role of subject knowledge in school education, and these have led to various explorations about how the fundamentals of subject knowledge in D&T should be constructed. In this paper we describe the way that subject knowledge content in our PGCE D&T curriculum has been, and still is, evolving in response to these diverse and not always complementary forces. Underpinning this, using survey data from past and present ITE students and placement schools, we explore how the subject knowledge content of our PGCE course matches with the needs of our students and the curricula of their placement and first teaching schools. We end by suggesting possible avenues of development for D&T ITE subject knowledge in the English context, and draw out some principles for building a relevant and robust subject knowledge base for teacher education in D&T.
Copyright (c) 2023 Karen, Torben Steeg http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Modelling approaches to combining and comparing independent adaptive comparative judgement ranks
The use of Adaptive Comparative Judgement (ACJ) for educational assessment addresses one need within technology education for the reliable assessment of responses to open-ended activities which are characteristic within the field. The output of an ACJ session is a rank order of the piece of student work with relative “ability scores”. However, the use of ACJ has been limited to date in that ranks are not directly comparable. For example, a rank produced from one class group has no reference information against which to compare a rank produced of the work of another class group. In this type of case a solution has been to combine the work of both classes into one ACJ session, but this has limitation when considering scaling up. A new goal for the use of ACJ involves solving this issue. The ability to compare or merge ranks presents a new capacity for ACJ – to use a rank as a “ruler” against which other ranks can be compared. In practice this would allow for two possibilities. The first is that a single rank could be developed which presents a national standard against which teachers could compare the work of their students to see where they are performing on a national level. The second is that communities of practice could complete ACJ sessions within their own classrooms, and when meeting as a group they could merge and compare relative performance of their own students to support professional development. In a previous article a proof of concept of this process conducted via simulation was presented (Buckley and Canty, 2022). In this article we present the results of a project with authentic data – student work completed in response to meaningful activities with teachers acting as ACJ judges – which indicate that the use of ACJ in this way is now possible.
Copyright (c) 2023 Jeffrey Buckley, Niall Seery, Richard Kimbell http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Considering the credibility of technology education research: A discussion on empirical insights and possible next steps
Technology education is a maturing research field. If studies are conducted which lead to suggestions for practice – which many are – as such changes can impact a substantial number of learners and require significant resources, it is essential that the underpinning results are credible. Therefore, much like there are standards for educational practice, standards in research are equally as important. Such standards help ensure that findings are valid and trustworthy. There are several dimensions to research credibility, such as replicability, reproducibility, the clear presentation of research questions and/or hypotheses, and reporting transparency, and it is important that the credibility of technology education research is considered for several reasons. In addition to ensuring sufficient empirical support for recommendations for practice, credibility is important to ensure trust in findings from both researchers and the wider community of stakeholders. It is also important for new studies which build upon prior work, that the evidential strength of the prior work is clearly understood. Over the past two years, several studies have been conducted to examine current levels of credibility dimensions, specifically replicability and transparency, in technology education research. In this paper, the results of these will be briefly summarised with a view towards suggesting general areas for improvement and in providing practical ways in which to do so. More importantly, through this paper a broader discussion can be started around what standards should be considered for technology education research across different dimensions of credibility. Finally, other ways in which research credibility can be examined will be considered with a view towards gaining an understanding of what the technology education research community consider as more or less important within this research agenda.
Copyright (c) 2023 Jeffrey Buckley http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Five years construction kits in primary schools
In March 2018, metal construction kits were distributed to all elementary and special schools in Rhineland-Palatinate. They were distributed to all elementary and special schools in Rhineland-Palatinate as part of the MINT project "Technikkiste" (transl.: technology box). At the end of the year 2018, three more expansion sets with solar cells followed for each school. So far, no request has been made to the schools, even after five years of the project's start made to the schools as to how and whether they use this material. Therefore, within the scope of this research an evaluation study for the elementary schools in the form of a questionnaire was carried out in July 2023. The study is intended to find out both the current usage behavior with the metal construction boxes as well as to get an impression of the teachers regarding the in-service training measures that took place as part of the project. 921 elementary schools in Rhineland-Palatinate were invited to participate in the online survey. 69 answered the questionnaire some more gave informal feedback. The special schools, which were also supposed to have received the metal construction kits, were left out of the survey, as they are likely to have different usage patterns and therefore a different behavior and would therefore require a different questionnaire. It is particularly noteworthy that only about 70% of the participants who responded are even aware of the metal construction boxes. Around 30% stated that they were not familiar with the metal construction kits. In addition, only about 43% of the participants indicated that the metal building boxes have ever been used in the classroom at their school. One of the main reasons that participating teachers do not use the metal building boxes is that the school has not received boxes or has too few for classroom use. This brief excerpt from the survey results already shows that the MINT promotion project is not showing the success that the Ministry of Education had hoped for.
Copyright (c) 2023 Martin Fislake, Jana Schumacher http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Higher education and industry leaders seem to continuously call for transforming the way learning occurs within schools to better meet the needs of students, society, and the workforce. Many attempts have been made to address these calls such as increasing integrated STEM programming in schools, providing after-school robotics activities, as well as developing novel school models. One such innovative model, the focus of this study, is a polytechnic high school model developed in collaboration between a public research-intensive university and several industry/community partners. This model was developed to be implemented in urban settings with an emphasis on serving minoritized youth through design project cycles created with local industry/community partners rather than through subject-specific classes. It can be valuable to investigate a school model that has been created to have this design-based learning approach as its central focus. The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand 1) how teachers perceive the influence of the school model on the learning of students from diverse backgrounds and 2) how teachers view their own experiences working within the school model. This study examined pre/post teacher surveys to provide insights into how the teachers believe the school model is working with respect to students' ability to perform within this style of design-based instruction and any challenges faced by the teachers to implement the school model. This information can help to inform those who seek to provide different learning environments for students through restructuring schools around industry/community-focused design projects. This paper will introduce the components of the polytechnic school model, detail the emphasis of the industry/community-driven design cycles, highlight the methodology used, present some preliminary findings, and discuss insights and recommendations for secondary schooling.
Copyright (c) 2023 Deana Lucas, Greg Strimel, Vanessa Santana http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Development of System Modules for Children’s Games with Vision and Music-Based Interactive Real-Time Feedback Modules - A Design-Based Research Approach
Most past research on young children’s attention focused on the design of multimedia games based on visual stimulation. In contrast, few studies have been on the development of teaching tools focusing on auditory stimulation. This study aims to develop a real-time interactive digital game with music and eye tracking for young children. The Design-Based Research (DBR) approach was adopted. Melodic tunes and lyrics composed by the researcher constitute the auditory stimulation, paired with visual images, in a game emphasizing interactivity between game content and players. Discussions were held between the various members of the developing team, during which the game developers and domain experts proposed suggestions to the researcher, who then continuously fine-tuned the game in line with the research objective. Our preliminary findings suggested that DBR, which emphasizes child-centered design, provides a novel and innovative approach to digital game design.
Copyright (c) 2023 Fang-Yu Liu, Siyi Tzeng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Using the Mirror as a Working Tool in Handicraft Education
In interaction between students and vocational teachers, technical artefacts constitute an essential part for the development of vocational students’ future professional knowledge. Although vocational learning has been an under-researched area, there has been an increased interest within the vocational education research to examine the teaching and learning processes that take place when vocational students and teachers interact in vocational school settings. The presence of physical objects such as tools, machines and material in the teaching and learning processes within vocational education, which encompass a central aspect of a vocational subjects’ specific characteristics, is a dimension which is often overlooked. In the Handicraft programme (specialization hair- and makeup stylist) at Swedish upper secondary vocational education, a large part of the practical work that students are engaged in is to view their work through the mirror. Therefore, the focus in this study is what learning content is made relevant when teacher and student(s) are interacting in front of the mirror. The data for the study consists of video recorded lessons from the Handicraft Programme, and the study is based on CAVTA (Conversation Analysis and Variation Theory). Based on CAVTA, the process of learning includes what is being learned and how learning is done in interaction between the teacher and student(s) in the authentic and enacted teaching session. At the conference, we will present results from detailed analysis of sequences when the teacher and the students interact in front of the mirror and what vocational knowledge is made possible to learn in these interactions.
Copyright (c) 2023 Minna Arvidsson, Nina Kilbrink, Stig-Börje Asplund http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Previously, I have proposed that the current incarnation of Design and Technology, version 1.0 is outdated and requires a new manifestation in the form of Design and / or Technology 2.0. Within this context a starting position for 2.0 subsequently acknowledges that on any given day students across the globe studying a form of version 1.0 are potentially doing more harm than good. Students are being ‘processed’ into a capitalistic consumption and production mode of thinking through contrived processes of generating ‘products’ under the pretence of solving problems. In this paper, a challenge to the community, I draw on the medical Hippocratic oath of "Primum non nocere", known as "Do no harm" and consider the pragmatic, ethical and philosophical implications of adopting this principle as a central feature of 2.0. In this paper I will also consider an alternative discourse for the current pervasive materialistic ‘outcomes’ in the context of ‘do no harm’ through challenging the anti-democratic, exploitative, perpetual rapid growth-oriented capitalist ideologies that manifest within 1.0 as ‘artefacts’, driven by self-fulfilling ‘needs and wants’. Consequently, learner accountability, liability and culpability are located as central features of a 2.0 ‘activist’ strategy that is earth and sustainability centred. A 2.0 mantra of ‘do no harm’ consequently aligns with UNESCO’s commitment to equity and transformational Education Sustainable Development through empowering lifelong learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society, for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity.
Copyright (c) 2023 David Spendlove http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0