Comparing students' conceptions of technology in a city technology college and a rural comprehensive school

This paper summarises the findings of a study which captured and compared the conceptions of Technology held by students in a City Technology College and a Rural Comprehensive School. The first section provides a brief overview of the methodology which was adopted. The second section reports the major findings of the comparative study. The two student populations cannot be differentiated by virtue of the range of conceptions which one group holds being distinct from those of the other. However; a comparison is made based on the extent to which students in a school tend towards a common conception. The third section considers the learning environment and curriculum of the city technology college in relation to the TEC-Lab project reported by Householder and Bolin (1993) and questions if this influences students’ awareness of technology

Capturing and comparing students conceptions of technology

This paper reviews the development of a research methodology to capture conceptions of technology in a form such that the conception of one individual can be compared with those of others. Although other studies have been undertaken in this field they have in the main been concerned with values and attitudes towards technology. The methodology which is reported in this paper utilises 'agree - disagree' responses to statements in a questionnaire to generate a 'conception statement' for each respondent. This 'conception statement' is constructed from a statement bank via a predetermined option matrix. The written statement allows respondents to confirm that their conception is correctly recorded. The methodology also allows the conceptions of a number of individuals to be compared both graphically and numerically. The range and frequency of identical conceptions can be determined for any sample of individuals. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the areas for research in which such a methodology might be applied

Capturing and comparing students' conceptions of technology: a study of students in two schools

This inquiry explores the premise that the conceptions of technology which students hold are influenced by the corporate vision of technology which is offered to them by their school. A review of the conceptions of technology evident in education and other fields is undertaken to develop a theoretic framework. The framework contains six areas of interest which support the process of focusing from general to specific conceptions of technology. The method of data gathering which is reported allows the conceptions held by a number of individuals to be captured and recorded in a common format such that their conceptions can: be articulated as written statements; plotted to provide a graphical comparison between individuals or groups; or coded to allow comparisons to be made between individuals and groups, using a computer data base. The study reports the development and piloting of an instrument based research methodology and the subsequent case study investigation of the conceptions of technology held by students in two schools: a Rural Comprehensive School and a City Technology College. Comparisons are explored in each institution between the conceptions of students and the corporate vision of technology in their school. A comparison is also undertaken of the conceptions of technology which were held by each student population

‘Credit where credit’s due’: encouraging and rewarding self directed learning through technology homework

This paper discusses a school based project exploring the use of a credit based rewards system and differentiated homework activity to encourage students to become 'self-directed' learners in Technology work. The paper outlines a curriculum development in which students were rewarded with a credit each time they 'self-directed' to complete a homework task that was beyond their minimum expected performance. A snap shot review of the students' activities is reported with students' comments from interviews and examples of the methods of differentiation that were employed