The need to change pedagogies in science and technology subjects: a European perspective

This paper evolves out of a consultancy that was carried out with the European Commission over a two year period between 2001 and 2003. A working group, set within the European Commission and comprising representatives from 15 member states, as well as associated and accession countries, stakeholders and social partners involved in maths, science and technology education, was formed. Its remit was to identify good practice in maths, science and technology education across Europe and to make recommendations for policy makers in the area. One important theme which emerged during the analysis of good practice was the need to develop the type of pedagogies which would encourage the active involvement of pupils in authentic and meaningful learning experiences within these subject domains. A series of questions relating specifically to this area was therefore incorporated into the second phase of the investigation and sent out to all participating countries. Qualitative analysis of these questionnaires was carried out. Using the results of these analyses, along with information from discussions, this paper considers the situation in Europe in respect of the introduction of what are essentially social constructivist pedagogies in the field of technology and science education. It explores some of the attempts which have been made to implement such pedagogies and more importantly the barriers to their introduction which have been identified in most countries across Europe. A consideration of research literature in the field is then used to promote the argument that teacher beliefs or theories are a crucial factor in preventing change. The role of these theories in presenting barriers to change are discussed and the implications for both policy makers and for initial teacher education are analysed.     

Can twenty years of technology education assist ‘grass roots’ syllabus implementation?

Teachers’ informed acceptance of challenges associated with teaching technology might ensure the successful implementation of a Technology syllabus in primary schools. They must be prepared to analyse their own understandings of technology concepts and processes, teaching and resource needs, and engage in professional development activities designed to meet their needs. This paper investigates the introduction of a new Technology syllabus into a school and draws on a number of data sources, for example, surveys, interviews with individual teachers, classroom observations, and field notes. It was evident that very specific personal and classroom related issues (e.g., content and pedagogy), and broader issues related to the school and wider communities (e.g., resources and networking), impacted on teachers’ acceptance of the syllabus. Based on these findings, the influence of 20 years of technology education and associated research on the essentials of classroom syllabus implementation by teachers is evaluated. Ways of making this store of knowledge and expertise more meaningful and accessible for teachers are explored.     

The effect of alternative approaches to design instruction (structural or functional) on students’ mental models of technological design processes

The study aimed to examine the relationship between alternative approaches towards problem solving/design teaching (structural or functional), students’ mental modeling of the design process, and the quality of their solutions to design tasks. The structural approach emphasizes the need for an ordered and systematic learning of the design process stages, while the functional approach emphasizes the teaching and study of design functions (rather than stages). Participants were 80 seventh graders, divided into two groups, who were taught a unit on technological problem solving by either approach in the course of 14 classes (21 h) during a semester. Before, during and after the design process of a technological solution the students represented their perception of the design process. The results for both groups were analyzed in terms of: (a) types of models generated; (b) changes in type of models along the learning/design process; (c) defining characteristics of the design process models. Significant differences between the groups’ models were found for most variables examined. The functional approach was more effective than the traditional structural approach for supporting the construction of holistic, flexible, and effective mental models of the design process of technological solutions.     

The use of design practice to teach mathematics and science

Relatively low participation in the hard sciences (mathematics, science, engineering and technology) has become a concern with respect to the capacity of Australia to meet critical infrastructure projects. This problem has its roots in poor student attitudes towards and perceptions about the study of prerequisite subjects including mathematics and science. Perception formation commences early in students’ education where students have claimed that mathematics was not intrinsically useful and was difficult to understand. With this mind, an intervention was planned and implemented in which technology and design practice was used to integrate the study of mathematics so students could produce and explain a useful artefact. The integrated design project included a focus upon instructional and regulatory discourse. Useful integration tools were developed that facilitated positive cognitive discourses such that students demonstrated a functional understanding of mathematical concepts, reported a broader and more applied understanding of the nature of mathematics and a belief that integration had helped them to make more sense of mathematics.     

Transformative capacity: Continual structuring by intertemporal technology transfer

The ability to maintain internally developed technology over time is important for corporate vitality. We label this ability transformative capacity and suggest that it depends on how well a firm accomplishes three tasks, These tasks are: the choice of technologies, their maintenance over time, and their reactivation and synthesis when required. To establish the need for transformative capacity, we first discuss time lags in the development of technologies and markets to suggest that not all technologies developed by firms can be utilized immediately. We then examine dimensions of technological knowledge that affect knowledge transfer over time. Next, we build on the resource-based view of the firm to discuss how firms can create transformative capacity. The concluding discussion focuses on the implications of transformative capacity for the analysis and management of technological investments as a way to maintain corporate vitality.     

Failures in technology transfer: Are farmers overlooked?

Technology transfer and attempts to improve farming systems in the Middle East and North Africa have not yet succeeded in significantly improving production of cereals and livestock. The authors suggest that the problem may be in the communication between expert and farmer, with the role of farmers being underestimated in the transfer process. The development and dissemination of the South Australian integrated cereal/livestock system both in South Australia and in North Africa and the Middle East as an example of how the demonstration of farming skills is ignored by policy makers.     

Agricultural technologies for climate change in developing countries: Policy options for innovation and technology diffusion

Climate has obvious direct effects on agricultural production. The reverse is more apparent than ever as greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture are tallied. The development and effective diffusion of new agricultural practices and technologies will largely shape how and how well farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change. This adaptation and mitigation potential is nowhere more pronounced than in developing countries where agricultural productivity remains low; poverty, vulnerability and food insecurity remain high; and the direct effects of climate change are expected to be especially harsh. Creating the necessary agricultural technologies and harnessing them to enable developing countries to adapt their agricultural systems to changing climate will require innovations in policy and institutions as well. Potential constraints to innovation involve both the private and public sectors in both developing and developed countries. The process of transferring agricultural innovations across agroecological and climatic zones is often subject to agronomic constraints. Often, the most binding constraints occur at the adoption stage, with several factors that potentially impede poor farmers’ access to and use of new technologies. Based on discussions of these constraints, we derive six policy principles and use these principles to suggest several specific investments and policy priorities.     

Uncovering learning outcomes: explicating obscurity in learning of aesthetics in design and technology education

Education and training interventions can be evaluated through the success of learning outcomes. Kirkpatrick's four-level model is a widely accepted and highly popular evaluation tool. However, some criticise the model's shortcomings. This article will examine the extent to which the four-level model can evaluate design and technology students' learning about aesthetics after an intervention by reporting our use of an augmented version of the four-level model. We examine the results in terms of students' reaction to the intervention, their long-term learning and their behaviour changes by studying their visual analyses and drawings through segment codes. We found that, in order to uncover the obscurities imbedded in aesthetics and to explicate the complexities, we could not use the four-level-model on its own, but had to revert to a more augmented version.

Value chain innovations for technology transfer in developing and emerging economies: Conceptual issues,typology, and policy implications

The adoption of modern technologies in agriculture is crucial for improving productivity of poor farmers and poverty reduction. However, the adoption of modern technology has been disappointing. The role of value chains in technology adoption has been largely ignored so far, despite the dramatic transformation and spread of modern agri-food value chains. We argue that value chain organization and innovations can have an important impact on modern technology adoption, not just by downstream companies, but also by farmers. We discuss conceptual issues and provide an empirical typology of institutional innovations through which value chains can contribute to technology transfer to agriculture in developing and emerging countries.     

Catching up through the development of technology standard: The case of TD-SCDMA in China

This paper explored the key factors affecting catching up through technology standard development by studying the evolution of TD-SCDMA, one of the three international standards of 3G mobile communications, in China. It was found that this was a complex co-evolution process between firm strategy and government policy aimed mainly at solving the challenges of late-comer disadvantages. The paper also examined the unique features of this co-evolution process, including the importance of the informal social network of non-customer stakeholders, and discussed the theoretical and practical implications of the key findings.     

Teachers learning about technology and technology education: Insights from a professional development experience

The introduction of technology education in primary and secondary schools during the past 10–15 years around the world has presented a number of difficulties for teachers, primarily related to their coming to understand the phenomenon of technology and to conceptualise the technology learning area in line with national frameworks. This paper reports on a professional development experience that aimed to assist a small group of primary school teachers to develop their understandings of technology and technology education. A theoretical model framed a series of professional development interactions between the researchers and the experienced teachers who were new to teaching technology. Data sources included teacher interviews, video recordings of the activities, teacher made models, and extracts from their reflective journals. The study presented some insights into how professional development experiences for teachers new to technology could be organised and implemented to best support their developing technology practices and understandings.     

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.     

Insights into the intrinsic and extrinsic challenges for implementing technology education: case studies of Queensland teachers

This study, embedded within the Researching School Change in Technology Education (RSCTE) project in Queensland, Australia, aimed to gain insights into the intrinsic and extrinsic challenges experienced by teachers during the implementation of technology education within primary school settings. The official publication and launch of the Technology years 1–10 syllabus and associated curriculum materials by the Queensland Studies Authority during 2003 saw the first formal Technology curriculum for primary schools in Queensland. The Queensland Government announced that all Queensland schools were to aim for full implementation of this new Key Learning Area (KLA) by 2007. This presented a challenge for Queensland teachers as they began to understand this new KLA and subsequently, were required to implement technology education for the first time. Education Queensland released a number of different strategies that were designed to assist this implementation, including research partnerships with universities. Thus, the RSCTE project, a partnership project between Education Queensland and Griffith University included implementation research within schools. Through the identification of insights into intrinsic and extrinsic challenges, this study, while recognising the limitations of transferability beyond the case studies presented, provides suggestions to assist the implementation of technology education.     

Viewpoints of higher education teachers about technologies

In the context of recent debates on technological literacy, a renewed research effort has focused on the nature of technologies. The aim of this work, which considers ’epistemological knowledge’ as viewpoints which spring into gear in a given situation, is to use questionnaires and interviews to identify the opinions of teachers in a training institute for master technicians in Tunisia on technologies. The objective was to try and define how these teachers perceive the relations between sciences, technologies and societies and how social and cultural aspects affect their discourse on technologies. The results of the questionnaires and the analysis of their discourses indicate that teachers essentially perceive technology as an applied science for which the ultimate purpose is progress and consumption. The relations identified by teachers between technologies, sciences and societies, reveal dichotomies between science and technology both with respect to the status teachers attribute to knowledge and to their views on its teaching.

Toward sustainable practices in technology education

This paper discusses the problematic relationship between technology education, consumption and environmental sustainability. The emerging global sustainability crisis demands an educational response that moves beyond mere ‘tinkering’ with classroom practices, toward technology education which embraces life cycle thinking and ‘eco-innovation’. It will argue that the urgent transformation to technology education for sustainability citizenship must begin with a critical examination of existing practices and assumptions which underpin unsustainability. The initial context for this discussion will be technological education in Canada and the United States, in particular a recent national report on the assessment of technological literacy. The paper concludes by suggesting several ‘new paths’ forward to move technology education toward more sustainable practices and more relevance for young people.     

Technology and Design, at Key Stage 3, within the Northern Ireland curriculum: teachers’ perceptions

Technology and Design was introduced at Key Stage 3 for all pupils in Northern Ireland, as a result of the Education Reform (NI) Order in 1989. Central to the process of introducing this new and compulsory subject, the government spent in excess of ￡167M to make provision for the subject in all post-primary schools. This paper explores the perceptions of teachers of Technology and Design (known as Design and Technology in GB) in post-primary schools throughout Northern Ireland to the introduction and implementation of the subject. The methods involved a questionnaire survey to all teachers of Technology and Design throughout Northern Ireland (n = 587) and one-to-one interviews with 24. Findings suggest that teachers consider Technology and Design to be a worthwhile subject and believe that it adds much to the educational experience of the pupils involved. Nonetheless, there is general acceptance that difficulties surround the whole issue of subject definition and content delineation. As a consequence, significant demands are placed upon these teachers as they work to ensure that all pupils are given a worthwhile and valuable learning experience. These findings are discussed in terms of teachers’ perceptions of subject definition, delineation of subject content, the nature of the work involved and issues related to academic ability.     

Design-without-make: challenging the conventional approach to teaching and learning in a design and technology classroom

The purpose of the study reported here was to investigate the use of a design-without-make unit as part of the design and technology curriculum with pupils aged 14. Three research questions drove the study: (a) What sort of designing do pupils do when they work collaboratively to design without having to make what they have designed? (b) What is the teachers’ attitude to design-without-make? (c) What is the pupils’ attitude to design-without-make? The study is a small pilot and data were collected using semi-structured interviews with a class teacher and two pupils and detailed scrutiny of five pupils’ design ideas developed during 6 lessons towards the end of an 18 lessons teaching sequence. Findings indicate that the teacher and pupils in this study responded favourably to design-without-make. The pupils’ designing was highly iterative, creative, involved making a wide range of design decisions and revealed understanding of technological concepts.     

Using DEPTH as a framework for the determination of teacher professional development

This study illustrates the use of the DEPTH model in the development of professional development for secondary teachers of Engineering. In the school context of Western Australia, Engineering is a new upper school subject which will be taught by Design and Technology teachers, the majority of whom have neither taught at this level before, nor taught Engineering content. The multidimensionality of the DEPTH model was particularly appropriate in identifying the range of felt needs of these teachers to address the new curriculum in Engineering.     

Governing interfirm knowledge transfer in the Chinese market: The interplay of formal and informal mechanisms

Building on knowledge management literature and relational exchange theory, this study addresses how formal (i.e., ex ante contracts and ex post control) and informal mechanisms (i.e., trust) affect interfirm knowledge transfer in the Chinese emerging market. The results of a survey of 343 manufacturer–supplier relationships show that whereas formal control fosters knowledge transfer, contracts are not significantly related to knowledge transfer, and trust greatly facilitates knowledge flows between exchange relationships. Moreover, trust and contracts have a positive joint effect, whereas trust and control have a negative joint effect, on interfirm knowledge transfer. The findings provide important theoretical and managerial implications for interfirm knowledge governance in China.