Defining and Measuring Technical Thinking: Students' Technical Abilities in Finnish Comprehensive Schools

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Title:

Defining and Measuring Technical Thinking: Students' Technical Abilities in Finnish Comprehensive Schools PDF

Url:

https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/v14n1/pdf/autio.pdf

Creator:

Autio, Ossi
Hansen, Ron

Publisher:

Journal of Technology Education
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Description: The terms "technical" and "technology" are widely used by educators, workplace practitioners, and the general public. Seldom, however, is there a written explanation of a technologist's or technician's attributes (Hansen, 1994; Ropohl, 1997). What do technicians know and do? Also absent from public consciousness is a sense of what constitutes the design or problem-solving process which precedes any technological act. By comparison, media depictions of technology as computers, electronics, and tools are widespread and the public appetite for these depictions is extensive. In teacher education and in schooling itself the subject through which technical skills and knowledge are imparted suffers from confusion about definition as well. What is technical thinking? What is technical aptitude? Why is it that technology teachers can recognize this ability when it is observed in students but they, and educators generally, have difficulty documenting the essence of it in writing?

To expose what it means to be a technologist, the investigators in this research project examine what students in Finland's schools learn in their study and practice of technology. Why, you might ask, would the authors attempt to better understand what it means to have a technical orientation or technical ability by studying school children, in this case Finnish children? The answer has two parts. First, from a research perspective, children's responses to adult inquiries are often more informative and authentic than those of adults. Secondly, teachers of technology have had to think about their field, especially how to teach it. In doing so, they have to know about the substance of their subject. By comparison, practicing technicians and technologists may not have been required to think through what they know and do, much less express it.

Target Audience: General Public

LC Classification:

Bibliography. Library science. Information resources (General) -- Subject bibliography -- Education -- Special topics, A-Z -- Engineering education
Education -- Special aspects of education -- Types of education -- Industrial education (General) -- High technology and education
Education -- Theory and practice of education -- Secondary education. High school teaching -- Curriculum

GEM Subject:

Science -- Engineering
Vocational Education -- Trade and industrial

Resource Type:

Reference Material
Instructional Material
Instructional Material -- Instructor Guide/Manual

Format:

Document -- PDF

Audience:

Educator
Learner

Education Level:

High School
Higher Education
Higher Education -- Undergraduate (Lower Division)
Higher Education -- Undergraduate (Upper Division)
Higher Education -- Technical Education (Upper Division)
Higher Education -- Technical Education (Lower Division)
Vocational/Professional Development Education

Language:

English

Access Rights:

Free access

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Source Type:

ATE Center

Source:

National Center for Manufacturing Education

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