Proceedings of the First AAAS Technology Education Research Conference
Introduction to the Proceedings
Fernando Cajas
Project 2061
American Association for the Advancement of Science
As a follow-up to the conference, participants were invited to reflect
on the issues discussed at the conference. The reflections focused on whether
or not the conference changed or inspired the participants’ thinking
about research in technology education and what specific next steps need to
be taken to focus a potential research agenda for technology education.
The participants recognized the incredible amount of research that is needed
to improve technology education and they actually identified general research
areas, particularly:
1) How students learn the ideas and skills recommended for technological literacy.
2) How to shape instruction to promote student learning of those specific ideas
and skills.
3) How to help teachers to use effective instruction.
It was understood that these areas of research should be placed in the
context of the ideas and skills identified in the Standards for Technological
Literacy and Benchmarks for Science Literacy. Elaboration
of research areas follows. They are based on the papers that form the proceedings.
How Students Learn
Several participants point to specific topics in student learning. McCormick
calls attention to problems in learning about systems: how and when children
can learn specific ideas about systems. There is an almost complete lack of
research on how students learn about system thinking.
McCormick also reviews the status of research on problem solving in England
where he and his colleagues have found that students follow rigid algorithms
reminiscent of the fictional ritual of the scientific method. Rowell suggests
that future directions for research should build on critical scrutiny of assumptions
underlying technology education and on cognitive and manipulative demands
of technological problem solving. Despite the research on design and problem
solving, we still do not know how children learn specific ideas about design,
trade-offs, constraints, redundancy, etc. The work from England and Canada
can illuminate what we are trying to do in America, but this research needs
to be adapted and new research needs to be initiated.
Karen Zuga and Tad Foster provide a detailed description of prior research
in technology education implying the need for cognitive research on how students
learn specific technological ideas and skills. These studies will require
not just paying attention to research on particular technology topics, but
also, as Senta Raizen, David Crismond, and Pat Hutchinson suggest, they will
require taking a closer look at the other research fields, particularly science
and mathematics education, and general cognitive research.
Instruction
Bennett and Benenson, among others,
call for a stronger connection between research and instruction. Kolodner
also places emphasis on the research method of "design experiments," where
research is based on work in classrooms instead of in the laboratory. By engineering
the classroom environment and studying its effects, then refining and further
analyzing it, one can learn about teaching and learning.
Research on instruction raises critical questions for the future of technology
education research. Science and mathematics education researchers have spent
decades dealing with problems of student learning. Progress in these fields
started only when researchers began asking what science and math ideas and
skills students really understand. Then, they moved to developing—on
a very modest scale—instructional activities that strongly connect instruction
and content. Instructional design was followed by classroom trials which were
revised and tried again until students showed successful learning of what
was intended. So, the model is to have basic research on student learning
and then use it as part of research on instruction. Without having basic research
on how students learn specific technology ideas and skills, doing research
on instruction may be premature.
Teacher Development
The reflections also bring out the need for research on how teachers themselves
understand—and learn to teach—specific technology ideas and skills.
Franzie Loepp (Illinois State University) calls for research on professional
development, curriculum development and implementation, and evaluation in
technology education. He then adds observations related to research capacity
in technology education and ways to promote a higher level of shared research
activity. This also raises the critical question of the viability of doing
research around curriculum and professional development without having basic
research on how students learn technology concepts and skills.
Concluding Comments
In his reflections about the conference Kenneth Welty (University of Wisconsin-Stout)
points out that a common practice in technology education is to engage students
in rich activities that are grounded in time-honored practices. He suggests
that one new focus for a research agenda would be studies of what students
are learning from those activities. He also states that instead of studying
current teaching practices in hopes of uncovering content worth learning,
our research agenda should focus on how students learn the deep understandings
and essential skills for technological literacy. This idea is simple but revolutionary.
The change of perspective that Welty suggests will require more careful study
of how activities help students to learn ideas and skills identified for literacy.
During Benenson’s shopping bag activity he suggested a list of ideas and
skills that the activity could address such as data collection, prediction,
fair test, different kinds of forces, properties of materials and structures,
and design and failure. The participants also gave their own ideas about the
kind of concepts that could be addressed by the activity.
The idea of having an activity to talk about research was part of an overall
plan of providing a context where participants could discuss the relationship
between the ideas and skills students should learn and the kind of research
that can help us to understand how they might achieve literacy. For example,
one may say that in the bag activity students are learning about failure.
If this is the case, the question is how children learn ideas about failure.
This is part of the general question of how children learn about technology
(ideas and skills or concepts and processes).
Good research is useful to explain how students understand specific technological
ideas and skills. This research will help to identify where students have
problems and what kind of instructional approaches can help teachers and students
to overcome these difficulties. The context of the bag activity provided an
opportunity to think about the kind of research that can improve our understanding
of teaching and learning about the nature of design and failure. For example,
how do students explain why their bags fail? Although the phenomenon of "failure"
may look observable, it may not be evident to students. Here research can
make an important contribution in unpacking the ideas about failure students
have.
I have used the example of design in part because design was presented by several
participants and because there is some research about design and problem solving.
But design is only a small part of technology. There are similar questions
in the context of other technology ideas and skills identified for literacy.
How do students learn about other technology ideas and skills that have been
identified for literacy? What do teachers need to know to teach these concepts
and processes? How can we design learning environments and curriculum materials
that support students’ understanding of key technological ideas?
The conference and the reflection papers represent a step in the direction
of enabling individuals to begin serious dialogues on making progress in research
on technology education. However, there are important issues that were not
discussed at the conference. In his article, Tad Foster (Indiana State University)
presents a general discussion about the limits of time, personnel, and funding
available, which demand collaborative focus on a small number of high-priority
topics. The training of researchers, for example, may need to be modified
and collaboration among research teams could be arranged. In fact, there are
many issues to be taken into account in thinking about research directions
for technology education. To make progress it will be crucial to set some
priorities.
