Search duplication in research and design spaces — Exploring the role of local competition

A lack of sufficient diversification in research strategies has been identified as an important problem for delegated research. We show that this problem can be solved by local competition (such as bribery, lobbying, rent seeking, competition at the patent office) among players who apply the same search strategies or develop the same design. Such competition can restore full efficiency in the non-cooperative equilibrium. Local competition interacts with the choice of whether to cluster or diversify, and rather than adding a further inefficiency to the existing ones, it eliminates inefficiency. The results are robust and hold under simultaneous search strategy choices as well as for sequential choices.     

Students’ interest and expectancy for success while engaged in analysis- and creative design activities

Inasmuch as design is a central activity in K-12 engineering education, understanding the students’ motivation during engaging in engineering design activities will help educators to develop and evaluate strategies for engineering design challenges, and improve curriculum. The objective of this study is to better understand the relationship between students’ interest and expectancy for success while engaged in two design activities in grades 9–12. The primary difference between the two activities was the strategy used to solve the design problems from a predictive analysis and a creative approach. Constructs of motivation for students’ interest include task value (TV) and intrinsic goal orientation (IGO) and extrinsic goal orientation (EGO). Expectancy for success includes control of learning beliefs and self-efficacy for learning and performance. In this study, students (n = 31) from three high schools that implement the Project Lead the Way curriculum in three states in the US participated in the study. Immediately after completing their design projects, each student was asked to complete a modified version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire survey instrument which evaluates their interest and expectancy for success. The results show that students were more intrinsically motivated to engage in a design activity that involves a predictive analysis than a creative approach. No significant correlation was found between students’ expectancy for success and EGO in design tasks that utilized either predictive analysis or creative approach. The study also found that TV and IGO were good predictors for students’ expectancy for success. Demographic information associated with students’ motivation in the design activities is also presented.     

STEM education in the twenty-first century: learning at work—an exploration of design and technology teacher perceptions and practices

Teachers’ knowledge of STEM education, their understanding, and pedagogical application of that knowledge is intrinsically linked to the subsequent effectiveness of STEM delivery within their own practice; where a teacher’s knowledge and understanding is deficient, the potential for pupil learning is ineffective and limited. Set within the context of secondary age phase education in England and Wales (11–16 years old), this paper explores how teachers working within the field of design and technology education acquire new knowledge in STEM; how understanding is developed and subsequently embedded within their practice to support the creation of a diverse STEM-literate society. The purpose being to determine mechanisms by which knowledge acquisition occurs, to reconnoitre potential implications for education and learning at work, including consideration of the role which new technologies play in the development of STEM knowledge within and across contributory STEM subject disciplines. Underpinned by an interpretivist ontology, work presented here builds upon the premise that design and technology is an interdisciplinary educational construct and not viewed as being of equal status to other STEM disciplines including maths and science. Drawing upon the philosophical field of symbolic interactionism and constructivist grounded theory, work embraces an abductive methodology where participants are encouraged to relate design and technology within the context of STEM education. Emergent findings are discussed in relation to their potential to support teachers’ educational development for the advancement of STEM literacy, and help secure design and technology’s place as a subject of value within a twenty-first Century curriculum.     

Identifying the gaps of fourth year degree pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in teaching engineering graphics and design

Engineering Graphics and Design is a technological subject which is offered in the Bachelor of Education degree from third to fourth year of the degree course. Fourth year pre-service teachers find EGD difficult to teach because of various reasons. Therefore the aim of the paper was to investigate fourth year pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge gaps in teaching EGD during their teaching practice. The study was conducted using a qualitative approach and eight pre-service teachers were purposefully selected to take part in the study. Findings of the paper found that pre-service teachers found teaching practice very short to do all the teaching tasks that is required of them. Some pre-service teachers did not have drawing models to make learning concrete to their learners. Assessment was done partially just to impress the university tutors and to conform to the schools’ rule and not to evaluate the learners’ understandings and their teaching.     

Why do students present different design objectives in engineering design projects?

Engineering design practice has been recognized as an effective approach to engage students in STEM learning. However, we noticed that students who possessed strong STEM knowledge did not necessarily perform well on their design projects. Thus, this study sought to explore factors that shaped students’ design objectives and means. A design-based research was adopted using a single group teaching experiment, in which students’ performance in relation to conceptual knowledge, engineering design practice, and their STEM attitudes were assessed in different design complexity groups. Based on the findings of this study, we concluded that students’ interest and metacognitive skills might be the key factors affecting their motivation during the engineering design process. Their abilities in predictive analysis and testing/revising were core elements affecting their design thinking. Our work provides preliminary evidence on how students form and present different design purposes and objectives in an engineering design project.     

Personality and other attributes,qualities, abilities and opinions of some ‘A’ level design students

Many claims have been made of a subjective nature that some students studying A level Design develop certain personal qualities and attributes not found in some students who study other academic A levels. The research describes attempts to quantify these claims and as a result provides a firmer basis for the understanding of the effects on students of studying design.     

A ‘Knowledge Trading Game’ for collaborative design learning in an architectural design studio

Knowledge-sharing and resource exchange are the key to the success of collaborative design learning. In an architectural design studio, design knowledge entails learning efforts that need to accumulate and recombine dispersed and complementary pieces of knowledge. In this research, firstly, ‘Knowledge Trading Game’ is proposed to be a way for promoting students’ design knowledge exchange, dissemination and refinement. Twelve students are randomly chosen as experimental participants. And secondly, ‘virtual value’ is used for students to trade their design knowledge. In this game, students buy others’ design knowledge to extend their design problem space; students decrease their design solution space through their sold design knowledge. Finally, ‘protocol analysis’ is adapted as the research methodology to examine the results of implementation. A positive outcome is identified that Knowledge Trading Game encourages collaborative design learning.     

Industrialization key technology of flax cultivation and multiple utilization of byproduct in winter-spring in south of China

High yield and effective cultivation technic of winter-spring planting flax in south of China has been resulted after four years cultivation trials. The cultivation technic include seeds selection, early planting with suitable season and quantity, proper fertilization, fertilizer superaddition depending on early period growing situation,non-furrow and cover planting, weeding chemically, spraying growth regulator to avoid falling and harvesting at proper period. The yield of raw stem can reach above 4500-5250kg/ha. We also introduce the effective technology of south flax industrialization--rapidly retting. Using this technic, flax retting can be finished within 20hrs and dry stem rate, long flax rate and fiber quality can be improved, pollution can be reduced and raw stem income can be increased over 300RMB/T.The main flax byproduct-flax residue multiple utilizations mode and technology also is introduced to increase the additional value of flax.     

The impact of the internet on students’ enhancement of cultural aspects in design projects: a case study on interior design graduation projects,University of Dammam,Saudi Arabia

The paper explores the impact of the internet on students and their enhancement of their Identity and culture in the world of globalization. It is based on two stages; a theoretical background in the literature that provides criteria for examining the issue of the study. Then, the analytical study is done to the collected data. The paper incorporates two methods of data collection; a questionnaire survey to measure the instructors’ perception of how students should reflect the identity and local culture in their projects in the internet era, and statistical analysis of students’ implementation of cultural knowledge and identity features in their graduation projects in the new millennium before the usage of internet in the design education in the interval of 2001–2007 and after the usage of internet the interval between 2008 and 2015. Consequently, the paper is designed to generate both statistical quantitative and qualitative data. Despite the apparent impact of Globalization and internet based education on abandoning individual identity, yet it might lead to opening new horizons in front of dealing with cultural identity and heritage with a contemporary vision that integrates with nowadays architecture and at the same time refer to the unique identity.     

Informing a pedagogy for design and problem-solving in hard materials by theorising technologists’ learning experiences

Design and problem solving are central to technology and have distinguished learning in technology from other curriculum areas. This research investigated how expert technologists learn design and problem solving through experience. Data was collected from four expert technologists and this information was analysed using learning theories that focus on learning through experience—that is experiential learning theory, situated cognition, distributed cognition and activity theory. This framework of analysis provided evidence that learning through experience is central to these experts’ development and justify a broader construct of experience than normally associated with hard materials. This information supports curriculum development in hard materials technology that employs a wide range of experiences and provides justification for curriculum developers and teachers to justify, inform and develop effective design and problem solving learning programmes focussed on a broadened construct of experience.     

Middle-school teachers’ understanding and teaching of the engineering design process: a look at subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge

This paper reports on research investigating six middle school teachers without engineering degrees as they taught an engineering unit on the engineering design process. Videotaped classroom sessions and teacher interviews were analyzed to understand the subject matter and pedagogical content knowledge the teachers used and developed as they introduced the eight steps of the engineering design process (from content standards for the state of Massachusetts, USA). The teachers demonstrated wide-ranging knowledge of the engineering design process, and this paper describes two of the steps the teachers showed a more sophisticated understanding—constructing a prototype and redesigning. Examples from the teachers illustrate strengths that can be built upon as well as some areas for further development.     

Perfect timing? Dominant category,dominant design,and the window of opportunity for firm entry

The optimal time to enter emerging industries is a key concern in strategy, yet scholars struggle to create a theoretical foundation that can integrate conflicting empirical findings. We incorporate categorical dynamics to industry life cycle theory to enhance existing entry timing theories. We introduce the concept of a dominant category—the conceptual schema that most stakeholders adhere to when referring to products that address similar needs and compete for the same market space—linking it to the dominant technological design and entry‐timing advantages. In particular, we propose the existence of a window of opportunity for firm entry that starts with the emergence of the dominant category and ends with the emergence of the dominant design. © 2013 The Authors. Strategic Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

An analysis of the impact of student–scientist interaction in a technology design activity,using the expectancy-value model of achievement related choice

Many education initiatives in science and technology education aim to create enthusiasm among young people to pursue a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Research suggests that personal interaction between secondary school students and scientists could be a success factor, but there is a need for more in-depth research on the actual effects of science education initiatives. This paper describes an in-depth, qualitative assessment of a technology design activity, using as a theoretical framework the expectancy-value model of academic choice Eccles and Wigfield (Annu Rev Psychol 53:109–132, 2002). A core element in the studied education initiative is the interaction between secondary school students and scientists. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participating students and analysed qualitatively to disentangle the factors in their motivation to participate in this initiative and their experiences and memories gathered during participation. Last, this paper reflects on the use of the expectancy-value model for in-depth assessments of science education initiatives. Results show that interest-enjoyment values and attainment values are most important in the students’ motivation to participate in the studied activity. These values are connected to educational principles of authentic practice, and of providing meaningful contexts for scientific concepts. Furthermore, results show that the interaction between students and scientists is not automatically a success factor. Disappointment in this interaction, can cast a shadow on students’ whole experience. This leads us to propose to include an additional factor in the expectancy-value model of achievement related choice: educational environment, including ‘personal interaction’ as an element. Adding this factor would—in our opinion—create an even better framework for in-depth assessment of science education initiatives.     

Are their designs iterative or fixated? Investigating design patterns from student digital footprints in computer-aided design software

This paper investigates iteration and fixation in design by mining digital footprints left by designers. High school students used computer-aided design software to create buildings in an urban area, with the goal of applying passive solar design techniques to ensure optimal solar gains of the buildings throughout a year. Students were required to complete three different designs. Fine-grained data including design actions, intermediate artifacts, and reflection notes were logged. Computational analytics programs were developed to mine the logs through three indicators: (a) frequency of the action of using energy analysis tools; (b) solar performance of the final designs; and (c) difference in solar performance between the prototype and final designs. Triangulating results from the indicators suggests three types of iteration—efficacious, inadequate and ineffective. Over half of the participants were detected as being efficacious iterative during the first design and becoming more and more fixated toward the end of the project, which resonates with previous findings on fixation effect among college students and professional designers. Overall the results demonstrate the power of applying computational analytics to investigate complex design processes. Findings from this work shed light on how to quantitatively assess and research student performance and processes during design projects.     

Hotspots and trends of technology education in the International Journal of Technology and Design Education: 2000–2018

Using visualized bibliographic data and a range of quantitative research methods, the analysis of the International Journal of Technology and Design Education (IJTDE), which is included in the core collection of Social Science Citation Index, reached a number of conclusions. Firstly, IJTDE is an important platform for the exchange of research results in the field of technology education, and has a significant influence. Secondly, De Vries, Williams, Ankiewicz and a number of others are influential and prolific authors in the IJTDE. Authors from the USA, England, New Zealand, Taiwan and Australia make most contributions to the IJTDE, Delft University of Technology, University of Auckland and the University of Waikato are the more prolific institutions in the IJTDE. Thirdly, technology education, education, design, science, creativity, technology, design education, knowledge, student, technological literacy and problem solving are the most frequency keywords in the IJTDE. Creativity, design education, problem solving, curriculum development, design and critical thinking, practice, engineering education, and STEM education are research trends in the IJTDE between 2000 and 2018. Fourthly, the discipline knowledge base mainly focuses on teaching and design methods in the technological environment, and the definitions of technology-related concepts. The results enable a deeper understanding and consideration of the content and influence of IJTDE, and the research hotspots in the field of technology education.

     

“Zero” in terms of food policy and risk perception

In the present article, the concept of “zero” is discussed using three examples, chemical contaminants/residues in foods, radionuclides, and GM foods. These examples share several common features. First, the risk reduction is generally quantified as the “fold” reduction, i.e., risk reduction by twofold, 10-fold, etc., as no other convenient parameters are available. Second, there are situations where “zero” virtually does not exist, such as in the case of toxicants in GM plants or of radionuclides, because the background always exists. Third, assuring “zero” is often impossible on technological and other reasons. This shows the critical importance of understanding and communicating “zero” in terms of food policy.     

Development and improvement: Status of Textile Machinery Manufacturing in China

The past over 20 years of reform & open-door practices has witnessed an amazingly rapid development in China's textile machinery manufacturing.1. The change in the production scale: the number oftextile machinery manufacturers grew from over 150 plants listed exceptionally in the category of textile industrial system in the old traditional planned economy to the over 500 plants that come from all sectors of industries engaged in textile machinery manufacturing in the new socialist market-driven economy. The production output value grew from 870 million RMB(Chinese Yuan) in 1987 to 14.7 billion RMB, 18