Teachers’ views about technical education: implications for reforms towards a broad based technology curriculum in Malawi

Internationally there has been concern about the direction of technical education and how it is positioned in schools. This has also been the case in Malawi where the curriculum has had a strong focus on skills development. However, lately there has been a call for enhancing technological literacy of students, yet little support has been provided for teachers to achieve this goal. This paper reports from a wider study that looked at teachers’ existing views and practices in technical education in Malawi. The article focuses on the findings from interviews that were conducted with six secondary school teachers to find out about their understanding of the meaning and rationale for technical education. It is also discussed how the teachers view technical education as involving skills development for making things and their thoughts on the benefits of such knowledge. It is argued that teachers’ views about technical education were strongly linked to the goals of the curriculum vacationalization policies adopted at the dawn of political independence. Besides skills training they saw the potential to impart thinking skills related to design and problem solving, and the need for essential pedagogical techniques to support learning in technical education. Examination requirements, inadequate opportunities to conduct practical activities and a lack of supportive policy were seen as limiting factors. This article claims that teachers’ views were shaped by their expectations and beliefs about the nature of technical education and what they perceived students may gain from such learning. Their views were also influenced by contextual factors which may have implications on reforms towards broader notions of technology education.     

Fostering creativity from an emotional perspective: Do teachers recognise and handle students’ emotions?

Emotions have a significant effect on the processes of designing and creative thinking. In an educational context, some emotions may even be detrimental to creativity. To further explore the link between creativity and emotion, a series of interviews were conducted with design and technology (D&T) teachers in Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing concerning their experiences of working with students on design projects. The intent was to investigate how these teachers understood and managed their students’ emotions while teaching creative design skills. Some teachers indicated that they understood their students’ emotions through observing their behaviour, connecting with them by synchronising emotions or by evaluating student performance. The teachers also reported using various other methods to handle their students’ emotions. This study highlights the importance of equipping D&T teachers with skills for awareness and regulation of emotions so that they can better enable students to cultivate creativity in the design process.     

“If I was going to design a chair,the last thing I would look at is a chair”: product analysis and the causes of fixation in students’ design work 11–16 years

Creativity is acknowledged to be important for economic growth and as an everyday life-skill, however several influential reports have suggested that education could do more to harness creative talent. Creative cognition literature suggests the lack of creativity is at least partly the result of ‘fixation’ (difficulty in generating novel ideas due to imagination being ‘structured’ by existing knowledge). This paper focuses on the secondary (students aged 11–16 years) design and technology (D&T) context in the UK. Here we examine whether teacher practice can contribute to fixation by focusing on one specific facet of teacher practice in D&T; the use of product analysis to inform the generation of creative design ideas. Data is drawn from the preliminary phase of a research and intervention project from interviews with D&T teachers (N = 14), students (N = 126) and lesson observations (N = 10) and an analysis of documents and student work. Product analysis is widely used at different points in design projects but, as is shown, in all cases current practice can lead to fixation, as thinking is constrained down specific paths and tasks are at best at procedural rather than comprehension level. The implications of these findings and tentative ways forward for practitioners are discussed.     

Assessing scientific and technological enquiry skills at age 11 using the e-scape system

This article reports on the outcomes from the e-scape Primary Scientific and Technological Understanding Assessment Project (2009–2010), which aimed to support primary teachers in developing valid portfolio-based tasks to assess pupils’ scientific and technological enquiry skills at age 11. This was part of the wider ‘e-scape’ project (2003-present), which has developed an innovative controlled alternative to design & technology and science public assessment at age 16. Teachers from eight primary schools were trained in the use of an online task-authoring tool to develop and trial assessment activities based on current classroom work. To compile their e-portfolios of assessment evidence, pupils used netbook devices, which afford multi-modal responses (text, drawing, photo, audio, video, spreadsheet) whilst leaving space on pupils’ tables for practical investigations. Once the pupil e-portfolios had been uploaded to the secure e-scape website, teachers assessed them using a ‘comparative judgement’ approach to produce a rank order with a high reliability coefficient. Participant teachers recognised the strength of the e-scape approach in terms of facilitating and managing pupils’ responses to assessment tasks in the classroom, which they successfully adapted to suit primary pedagogy. In particular, the benefits of scaffolding complex assessment tasks through the step-wise e-scape process in the authoring tool represented for some of the teachers a pedagogically significant development in terms of their planning.     

An investigation into the effect of systematic design methods in craft,design and technology (CDT)

This paper has grown out of a long standing personal concern that the current approaches to design teaching are too narrowly based and that they can distort the very activity that they set out to encourage. A survey of the comments made in Examiner's Reports of pupil's work in public design examinations during 1986 & 1987 provides some insight into the difficulties that pupils experienced in carrying out their design activities.Design activity in schools developed from the beginnings initiated by the curriculum development projects of the late 1960's and early 1970's. These put forward methodical approaches to designing which have become widely used in UK secondary schools and which are now firmly embedded in the publications and project assessment framework of the current national examinations.The present study suggests that, while these methodical approaches clearly work, they imply a logical progression of thought which does not necessarily parallel the pattern of human thinking. It is recognised that pupil's design folios written up at the end of a project can be made to describe a logical, systematic procedure which has more to do with the assessment framework than the actual developments of design ideas during the project. Indeed, teachers and candidates were being actively encouraged to base their work on these structured frameworks:The actual style and quality of the folder presentation is also important. This is particularly so when working to a detailed mark scheme. Certainly it is easier to mark a folder which broadly follows the pattern of the mark scheme than one which is very erratic. Teachers are advised as to the advantages of using the mark scheme as a teaching tool and as a guide for folder presentation. NEA, 1986.Finally, the paper examines some more recent developments in the procedural models of design activity and the way in which professional designers approach their work. These insights provide an indication of the way forward for school design work and its assessment.     

Assessing the Attitudinal Technology Profile of South African Learners: A Pilot Study

Various instruments measuring either technological literacy or pupils’ attitudes towards technology are available. Recent research has emphasised that these instruments have not been validated for the South African context, yielded invalid and unreliable data for this specific context, and should therefore be adapted (Ankiewicz, Myburgh & Van Rensburg, 1996; Van Rensburg, Ankiewicz & Myburgh, 1996a, 1996b, 1999). The concept technology profile refers to learners’ knowledge and understanding of technology, their awareness of it, their values and attitudes towards technology, and their technological capability. It also refers to the extent to which these aspects have become part of the learners’ personality, beliefs, perceptions and behaviour. At the PATT (South Africa) Conference, held during October 1996, the developments regarding the design of an Attitudinal Technology Profile (ATP) questionnaire to evaluate the effects of curricula on the technology profile of learners in South African schools, were reported. At the time of the conference, the ATP questionnaire still had to be applied in order to establish its reliability and validity (Ankiewicz et al., 1996, p. 90). This article reports on this application of the ATP questionnaire. A quantitative pilot study was undertaken among 439 South African learners in Grades 9 and 10 in the Gauteng Province in the Johannesburg/Soweto area to determine their attitudinal technology profile. Differences among the learners with regard to their exposure to Technology Education, as well as gender differences, were also investigated. The conclusion is that the ATP questionnaire provides more reliable and valid results than its western counterpart that have been applied in South Africa. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Potential for Collaborative Problem Solving in Design and Technology

This paper discusses the potential of Design and Technology (D&T) as an environment for collaborative problem solving. Peer collaboration is considered to be a valuable learning mechanism but has not generally been exploited by teachers or explored by researchers in this context. D&T is unique in involving procedural problem-solving activity where talk between peers relates to physical manipulation and feedback and both concrete models and graphical representations play an important mediating role. The role of teachers is central to our discussion, particularly their task structuring, agendas and pedagogic strategies for supporting learning through collaboration; these have been underplayed in much of the general research literature on collaboration. Our discussion works towards a framework for analysing collaborative problem-solving activity in D&T, building on sociocultural perspectives and deriving additional insights into pupils' social and cognitive strategies from the literature on classroom talk.     

Passionate about designing

In the school based subject of design and technology (D&T) a fundamental element is designing and making functional products using critical and creative thinking whilst developing skills in the use of a variety of processes and materials. Teachers of the subject need to be more then just ‘enthusiastic’ about the processes involved if they are to develop enthusiasm in their pupils that will sustain them through the exciting but sometimes arduous and difficult processes required to achieve outcomes of which they and their teachers can be proud. The intention of this research project, using an initial sample of forty-nine students and a non-probability purposive sample of ten students studying to become D&T teachers was to tease out the factors which appear to enable some students to be passionate about creating a product to a given brief while others from similar backgrounds and expectations, given the same brief, and in the same learning situation, do not reach this level of enthusiasm. The data collection method used was an attitude scale and semi-structured interviews which were qualitatively analysed in order to identify factors involved, with the intention of informing and improving the way the authors teach their students, to design, and about design, with the additional aim of improving the students teaching of that activity once they become D&T teachers. Within the full paper results are discussed and tentative conclusions drawn.     

Pragmatism, Pedagogy and Philosophy A Model of Thought and Action in Action in Primary Technology and Science Teacher Education

This article reports on one outcome from a three-year study with pre-service primary teachers at Goldsmiths' College, University of London. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the influence of participants' prior educational experience and beliefs about the relationship between design & technology (D&T) and science on their lesson planning for these subjects during school placements. Data from the study support a three-domain model of pre-service teachers' thinking and action. When operating within the pragmatic domain, participants are primarily concerned with survival in the classroom, resulting in short-term planning which may contradict their epistemological and curricular beliefs. In the pedagogical domain, the focus shifts from the pre-service teacher themselves and their immediate survival to the learning potential of the activities they plan. There is evidence that some participants have progressed to operating within a philosophical domain, leading to clasroom practice which reflects and re-conceptualises pre-service teachers' core beliefs about the nature of, and relationship between, D&T and science. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The politics of technology education

Conclusion All the issues raised in this paper converge in one major aspect which is at the heart of almost all of the anxieties and the critiques. It is simply that, in modern societies, technology equals power. As Bernstein (1975) observed, the outcomes of the decisions on whom to give access to knowledge, at what level of content and difficulty and for what accreditations substantially determine who holds power in the next generation. As technology teachers we must realise that we have a large part of the most fundamental power of all — the distribution of power in future society.The responsibility is formidable. This paper has sought to make it more visible and to facilitate its more effective exercise by demonstrating the nature of the process and to advocate its implementation with understanding. In that way teachers may open a broader path to integrity and justice — both professional and political — in both schools and society.An edited version of the Maurice Brown Memorial Lecture presented at the National Design and Technology Exhibition 1993John Eggleston is Professor of Education at the University of Warwick and Chairman of Judges of the Young Electronic Designer Awards     

Discontinuity in transition: Pupils' experience of technology in year 6 and year 7

This paper refers to current work at Goldsmiths University of London (Understanding Technological Approaches, a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council [research award R-000-23-3643]), in which we have tracked the design & technology project work of pupils from ages 5 to 16. The paper looks particularly at the discontinuity we have identified between the d&t experiences of pupils at the top end of primary schools and the bottom end of secondary schools. The differences between these experiences are explored by looking particularly at data relating to the ways in which teachers interact with pupils, either to direct or support the pupils in their work and at the important role discussion plays in d&t. The paper concludes that there is a critical need for teachers in both sectors to be more aware of each other's aims and priorities in order to plan experiences which will support an individual pupil's progressive development of d&t capability.     

How to Build an AI Climate-Driven Service Analytics Capability for Innovation and Performance in Industrial Markets?

AI climate-driven service analytics capability has been anecdotally argued as a viable strategy to enhance service innovation and market performance in B2B markets. While AI climate refers to the shared perceptions of policies, procedures, and practices to support AI initiatives, cognitive service analytics capability refers to the analytical insights driven by AI climate and augmented by both machines and humans to make marketing decisions. However, there is limited knowledge on the antecedents of such analytics capabilities and their overall effects on service innovation and market performance. Drawing on service analytics literature and the microfoundations of dynamic capability theory, this study fills this research gap using in-depth interviews (n = 30) and a survey (n = 276) of service analytics managers within the AI climate in Australia. The findings confirm the five microfoundations of cognitive service analytics capabilities (cognitive technology, cognitive information, cognitive problem solving, cognitive knowledge & skills, cognitive training & development). The findings also highlight the significant mediating effect of service innovation in the relationship between analytics climate and market performance and cognitive service analytics capability and market performance.     

The experiential domain: developing a model for enhancing practice in D&T education

Creativity and innovation are leading topics for the twenty-first century, not only in individual, cultural or social contexts but also within a wider perspective in business or economic development. For that reason, creative and innovative activities have started to feature in many design-based programs in second level education. Design and Technology (D&T) education has a special importance in promoting creativity and innovation, particularly when conceptual and material aspects of the design process reciprocally support one another. In the classroom, it is common for pupils to take part in creative and innovative activities in pairs or small groups. However, the complex and non-linear nature of these design-based activities calls for dynamic, collaborative problem solving. While collaborative settings and virtual learning environments in D&T education are receiving considerable attention in current research literature, we know very little about shared interactions in design-based activity. Accordingly, there is a need to examine both the collaborative and individual evidence of design-based activity by turning our attention to the interactions around that evidence as teachers and pupils engage in these activities. The purpose of this paper is to examine a pedagogical approach focusing on the social and cognitive interaction of teachers and pupils which is supported by technology and situated in the context of design-based activity. This research found that such interactions not only augmented the design process but led to a conceptual model which demonstrates evidence-based progress through the active configuration of knowledge and understanding.     

The Technology Fair: a project-based learning approach for enhancing problem solving skills and interest in design and technology education

This paper presents an innovative way in which university education can help pre-service teachers become better problem-solvers. The central idea is to use the “Technology Fair” as a means for promoting pre-service teachers pedagogical content knowledge about technological problem solving skills. This innovation is supported with results from a study carried out in autumn 2004. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of a procedure of working with primary school children to complete and present a technology fair project, on the educational value and meanings attached to problem solving skills by pre-service teachers. Pre-tests, mid-test and post-tests were administered to the pre-service teachers before, during, and after the preparation of the technology fair, respectively. A number of pre-service teachers were selected and interviewed after the completion of the technology fair. Data were also collected from reflective diaries kept by the pre-service teachers during the preparation phase of the technology fair. Analysis of the results indicates that the technology fair contributes to the development of positive values and attitudes in technology education and has a significant influence on improving pre-service teachers understanding and application of problem solving strategies within the domain of technology.     

Transferring and Transforming Technology Education: A Study of Norwegian Teachers’ Perceptions of Ideas from Design & Technology

What happens when educational ideas cross national and cultural borders? How do teachers respond to ideas originating in a different school system and a different national culture? This article reports on an empirical study investigating the transfer of ideas from Design &; Technology as a subject in England and Wales into Norwegian schools. A sample of teachers participating in a specific project on technology teaching inspired by this subject has been studied by means of interviews and classroom observation. Results of the study show that while some elements of Design &; Technology are adopted by the teachers, essential ideas of the subject are significantly transformed. Drawing on Barnes, (1992, Teachers and Teaching: From Classrooms to Reflection (pp. 9–32), The Falmer press, London) concept of teachers' professional frames for teaching, it is shown how specific aspects of the national and educational culture have had a considerable effect on?the teachers' interpretation of the nature of technology as a subject of teaching and its place in the curriculum. The study illustrates the importance of the cultural context in how educational ideas are interpreted, reshaped and realized in schools.     

Revisiting the norm concept in relational governance

In this paper two of the fundamental issues concerning the norm concept, its definition and its classification, are explored. First, in the field of marketing, norms have been defined as expectations developed by actors concerning other actors' behavior in a given context [Jap, S., & Ganesan, S. (2000). Control mechanisms and the relationship life cycle: Implications for safeguarding specific investments and developing commitment. Journal of Marketing Research, 37, 227-245; Heide, J. B., & John, G. (1992). Do norms matter in marketing relationships? Journal of Marketing, 56, 32-44]. An analysis of to what extent this definition is in line with the definitions made in other disciplines will be carried out. Secondly, an identification of typologies of norms, which allows classifying different norms, will be set forth.     

Progression in Technology Education in New Zealand: Components of Practice as a Way Forward

Understanding and undertaking technological practice is fundamental to student learning in technology education in New Zealand, and the enhancement of student technological literacy. The implementation of technology into New Zealand’s core curriculum has reached the stage where it has become critical that learning programmes are based on student progression to allow for a seamless education in technology from early primary to senior secondary. For this to occur, teachers and students need to focus learning on key features of technology education. This paper is based on research initiated in 2001 which explored the nature of progression of student learning in technology. It draws on findings from research undertaken in New Zealand classrooms in 1999–2000 that resulted in the development of the technology assessment framework (TAF), (as reported in detail Compton & Harwood 2003). The 1999–2001 research was funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Findings from the 2001 research allowed for the identification of key features of technology education that are relevant across all age groups, contexts and technological areas. These key features were collectively termed components of practice. The three components of practice established to date are brief development, planning for practice, and outcome development and evaluation. This paper discusses the development of progression matrices for each of these and provides illustrative examples of student work levelled against the matrix indicators of progression for brief development.     

Innovation learning in comprehensive education?

The goal of this article is to clarify the concept of innovation and by presenting a research on the basic education outcome assessment data from an innovation learning perspective, answer to a question: Do students learn innovation in comprehensive education? The empirical information in this research is based on data collected in the national assessment of the subject craft, design and technology education (CDT) in Finland in 2010. The comprehensive education in Finland, the basic education, means grades 1–9 in comprehensive schools from age 7 to 16. This assessment included a design task, a test of knowledge and skills and an attitude test in CDT. This research focuses on two central concepts: (1) innovation is defined as a novel, inventive and usable solution, in either material or immaterial space: an end-product, process or method related to people’s practical needs and purposes and (2) innovation learning is defined as a problem based and creative process of using and implementing knowledge and skills in iterative and critical manner in designing and making a novel and practical solution with high usability. The assessment data was marked off to tasks which indicated the innovation learning (n = 661 out of the sample n = 4792). Brim quartiles were used as a methodological solution; the brim quartiles of usability formed the sample of this research. The statistical differences were tested using the Kruskal–Wallis test and the Pearson Chi Square test. Innovation learning includes the process of designing, planning, making and the practical solution itself. The national data allow general conclusions according to the level of innovation learning in comprehensive education. The central observation is that students learn innovation in comprehensive education varying from good to moderate levels. However, if students have not studied design and technology since 7th grade, they are twice as likely to be negative underachievers as to be either positive achievers or positive underachievers. This is useful for governments to know when trying to increase innovation on a national level, as well as when considering the well-being of people and society.     

Improving Technology Education Research on Cognition

In the United States cognitive research about technology education for the general educational purpose of technological literacy has suffered from a lack of a coherent focus. Certainly, there are studies that have addressed cognition, yet analysts of technology education research have been unable to coordinate their findings in any meaningful way (Streichler 1966; Dyrenfurth & Householder 1979; McCrory 1987; Zuga 1994). There are several persistent problems facing technology educators that contribute to the inability to develop clear interpretations or generalizations of the relationship of cognition and technology education. If some of those problems are identified, then, perhaps, we can address them in order to devise directions and strategies for studying cognition in technology education.     

Communities of practice as a tool for continuing professional development of technology teachers’ professional knowledge

With the introduction of a new school curriculum in South Africa in 1998, Technology as a school subject was introduced for the first time. Implementation by the National Department of Education took place over a very short time frame allowing very little time for adequate training of technology teachers by the provincial departments of education. Teachers were expected to implement technology in schools without being adequately trained. They needed to develop their professional knowledge which comprises school knowledge, subject knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. This could mainly be done through continuing professional teacher development (CPTD). To address the lack of CPTD opportunities and to develop these teachers’ professional knowledge, the Unit for Technology Education at a university in South Africa established a Community of Practice (CoP) as a strategy to develop teachers’ professional knowledge in Civil Technology. However, after a number of CoP workshops, and although these CoPs have been designed to serve as a tool for CPTD, we do not know to what extent it succeeds in developing teachers’ professional knowledge. The purpose of this article is to determine to what extent the CoP succeeded in developing teachers’ professional knowledge. A qualitative study was conducted. Data were collected through the observation of the teachers during the CoPs, open-ended questionnaires and field notes taken during workshop discussions. The main findings were that the teachers gained discipline knowledge and acquired instructional methodology (pedagogy) from which learners may benefit. The presentation and organisation of the CoP influenced the learning of the teachers.