A Paradigm for Promoting Visual Synthesis through Freehand Sketching

Research (Fish, 2004) suggests that everybody should be taught how to freehand sketch and utilise it as a tool for supporting the visualising instinct. A fundamental shift in philosophy of the technology education system in Ireland towards design driven subjects brought with it a need to develop practising teacher’s technological capabilities. This paper is concerned with the exploration and development of freehand sketching as a support tool for visual synthesis and creative discovery during design driven activities. The fundamental hypothesis tested was whether a set of empirically derived activities ranging from observation to imagination, improved the ability of students with novice sketching ability to develop, manipulate and synthesise graphical libraries through the medium of freehand sketching. 124 students of an Initial Technology Teacher Education programme participated in a journey through the activities as part of a third year undergraduate Design and Communication Graphics module. The study was carried out over a four week period, it involved eight hours of classroom based instruction and the sketching ability of all students was measured pre and post-instruction. Results from the study reveal a statistically significant increase in student’s ability to freehand sketch with notable improvement in their fluency and ability to synthesise concepts and geometries. Overall, the novel and original activities have a notable effect on student’s ability to form, manipulate and synthesise visual information and communicate this through freehand sketching. The model presented has potential to be successively implemented by other teachers in a variety of educational settings and student populations

Modelling approaches to combining and comparing independent adaptive comparative judgement ranks

The use of Adaptive Comparative Judgement (ACJ) for educational assessment addresses one need within technology education for the reliable assessment of responses to open-ended activities which are characteristic within the field. The output of an ACJ session is a rank order of the piece of student work with relative “ability scores”. However, the use of ACJ has been limited to date in that ranks are not directly comparable. For example, a rank produced from one class group has no reference information against which to compare a rank produced of the work of another class group. In this type of case a solution has been to combine the work of both classes into one ACJ session, but this has limitation when considering scaling up. A new goal for the use of ACJ involves solving this issue. The ability to compare or merge ranks presents a new capacity for ACJ – to use a rank as a “ruler” against which other ranks can be compared. In practice this would allow for two possibilities. The first is that a single rank could be developed which presents a national standard against which teachers could compare the work of their students to see where they are performing on a national level. The second is that communities of practice could complete ACJ sessions within their own classrooms, and when meeting as a group they could merge and compare relative performance of their own students to support professional development. In a previous article a proof of concept of this process conducted via simulation was presented (Buckley and Canty, 2022). In this article we present the results of a project with authentic data – student work completed in response to meaningful activities with teachers acting as ACJ judges – which indicate that the use of ACJ in this way is now possible

Using Teachers’ Judgments of Quality to Establish Performance Standards in Technology Education Across Schools, Communities, and Nations

The establishment and maintenance of national examination standards remains a serious issue for teachers and learners, whilst the levers of control remain firmly in the hands of Awarding Bodies and supervising politicians. Significantly, holistic assessment presents an agility and collective approach to establishing in the minds of teachers “what is of value” when determining the comparative evidence of pupil performance. It is argued in this paper that the collation of the comparative judgment process can initially identify and subsequently maintain standards of performance that can be defined on a cluster, regional or even national level. Much comparative judgment research centers on the formative benefits for learners, but here we place the focus on teachers operating in collaborative groups to establish standards within and beyond their own schools, and ultimately across the nation. We model a proof-of-concept research project. A rank is produced by the collective consensus of the participating teachers and used to simulate a definition of standard. Extrapolations are statistically modeled to demonstrate the potential for this approach to establishing a robust definition of national standards. But central to the process is what is going on in the minds of teachers as they make their judgements of quality. The research aims to draw out teachers’ constructs of quality; to make them explicit; to share them across classrooms and schools; and to empower teachers to debate and agree their standards across schools. This research brings to the fore the symbiotic relationship between teaching, learning and assessment

Framing Spatial Cognition: Establishing a Research Agenda

A significant aim of research concerning human intelligence is to develop a comprehensive cognitive map of the human intelligence structure. The evolution of this knowledge base is mirrored through the chronological development of models which frame cognitive domains. The domain of Visual Processing (Gv), commonly known as spatial ability, is a domain which has seen significant advances in the pertinent knowledge base. Models framing this cognitive structure are arguably under-evolved through a lack of representation of factors identified in contemporary research. This paper presents the initial conception of a more comprehensive theoretical framework which builds upon existing theory. It is envisioned that such a framework could support further research exploring the nature of thinking in graphics and other related disciplines. A research agenda is discussed concerning the validation of this framework and its utilization in the holistic assessment of spatial ability

IDATER online conference: graphicacy and modelling 2010

IDATER online conference: graphicacy and modelling 201

A Review of the Valid Methodological Use of Adaptive Comparative Judgment in Technology Education Research

There is a continuing rise in studies examining the impact that adaptive comparative judgment (ACJ) can have on practice in technology education. This appears to stem from ACJ being seen to offer a solution to the difficulties faced in the assessment of designerly activity which is prominent in contemporary technology education internationally. Central research questions to date have focused on whether ACJ was feasible, reliable, and offered broad educational merit. With exploratory evidence indicating this to be the case, there is now a need to progress this research agenda in a more systematic fashion. To support this, a critical review of how ACJ has been used and studied in prior work was conducted. The findings are presented thematically and suggest the existence of internal validity threats in prior research, the need for a theoretical framework and the consideration of falsifiability, and the need to justify and make transparent methodological and analytical procedures. Research questions now of pertinent importance are presented, and it is envisioned that the observations made through this review will support the design of future inquiry

Spatial Skills and Success in Engineering Education: A Case for Investigating Etiological Underpinnings

One of the most consistent findings within engineering education research is the relationship between spatial skills achievement and success within STEM disciplines. A critical dearth in this research area surrounds the question of causality within this known relationship. Investigating the etiological underpinnings of the association of spatial skills development to success in engineering education is a contemporary research agenda and possesses significant implications for future practice. This paper presents a starting point through a review of some of the pertinent literature to consider this current agenda