Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Instructional Systems and Workforce Development. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2007 Mar 8

Thesis (M.S.)--Brigham Young University. School of Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-67).

Today, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a growing interest, concern, and need for technological literacy. To this end, the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) through the Technology for All Americans Project, has developed and promulgated the Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology. This effort is part of the ongoing initiative to develop technology standards on a national level, and to focus on what every student in grades K-12 should know and be able to do in order to achieve technological literacy (ITEA, 2000). The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived knowledge, use, and acceptance of national content standards by industrial technology education teachers in the state of Arizona. This study used a descriptive survey design in which self-reported perceptional and demographic data were obtained from industrial technology education teachers in Arizona. The survey was delivered via the web for expediency and reduced cost in collecting the data. Due to the relatively small size of the population and historically low response rate from teachers in the field, a census study was conducted (Creswell, 2002). The instrument was adapted from a survey questionnaire developed through Utah State University after a review of the literature failed to reveal any validated instrument that could be used to collect the requisite data. In addition to investigating the perceived level of knowledge, use, and acceptance of national content standards, the study also investigated the perceptions of industrial technology teachers as to the importance of the content standards with regard to their students and to classroom instruction. Frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, and correlational analyses were performed on the data. Results of the study showed that in spite of a low percentage of membership in either the state or international governing organizations, the majority of industrial technology education teachers in Arizona endorsed all of the national content standards presented in the Standards for Technological Literacy. This is in contrast to an historic lack of acceptance of technology education by industrial arts teachers. The study also revealed that the majority of technology education teachers in Arizona perceived they would benefit from additional training on all of the standards.

Hypertext and hyperlinks are present on almost every web site or electronic document. As integral components of visual rhetoric, they are foundational to any discussion of technology and literacy. This inquiry is designed to explore first-year composition students' advances in technological literacy, specifically hypertext reading and research strategies. To accomplish this, a hypertext-reading project was designed to investigate the ways in which first-year composition students assimilate and employ hypertext information as a source from which they must extract information to use in the development of an argument. A program, designed and written specifically for this project, presented research participants, 76 students enrolled in second semester first-year composition, the components of hypertext reading as an online reading and research activity. Participants first completed a technology survey designed to reveal each participant's prior experience and self-perceived expertise with current technology, after which they completed a two-part exercise consisting of a hypertext reading assignment and a post-reading questionnaire. Participants were instructed to use their reading to inform and develop a thesis for an argument. The article selected for this study was "Illegal Immigration," accessed by navigating to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration. The article discusses a current controversial national concern, illegal immigration. While the use of Wikipedia, an online user-edited encyclopedia, often raises credibility concerns, the site in general offers excellent examples of hypertext reading that include textual as well as graphic links. In the analysis, it is revealed that while the study group rated themselves highly proficient users of Internet search engines, email, social networking, and word processing applications, the majority initially did not recognize a relationship between the actions they take as users of those applications and hyperlinks or hypertext. Post-reading responses revealed that the majority of the group read the article from top to bottom with few to no diversions. Furthermore, while most did recognize the hyperlinks as information portals, they made conscious decisions to not access the links for a variety of stated and implied reasons. This research involved a relatively small student sample that defines the limited scope of the findings; however, the data suggests attitudes and expectations of this group that may reflect student populations with similar or shared demographics. These data are used to inform potential pedagogical application suggestions, including the usefulness of technological proficiency assessments and research using technology within the classroom as well as in external assignments.

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation was the result of an investigation into the relative importance of construction as a curriculum organizer for the field of technology education. In particular, it concentrated on the relationship between construction technology and the principles of general education and technological literacy. The review of literature focused on the historic roles and meanings of this curriculum organizer and these principles as the discipline evolved from the industrial arts into technology education. Operational definitions were synthesized and the linkages between them was clearly identified. To address technology education's contribution to general education, or the full development of the human personality, the spheres of human/technology interaction model was developed. The model is based on the idea that people interact with technology and evaluate those interactions from three fundamental perspectives. Those perspectives were identified as the civic-life sphere, the personal-life sphere, and the work-life sphere. One hundred and forty-eight faculty members of technology teacher education programs in colleges and universities throughout the United States were surveyed. A 77% return rate was obtained. The survey included four major sections in addition to requesting limited information about the respondents and their programs. The four major sections asked the respondents to: 1) Evaluate potential goals for a K-12 technology education program. 2) Determine the relative importance of 10 study areas or curriculum organizers as they related to each of the three spheres of interaction. 3) Determine the percentage of the technology education curriculum that should be allocated to each of the three spheres of human/technology interaction. 4) Provide selected information about the way construction is offered and taught in technology teacher education programs. Medoid cluster analysis was used to evaluate the data derived from the goals of technology education portion of the survey. Using this information, three clusters were formed and initial respondent membership for each cluster was established. Subsequently, discriminant analysis was used to accomplish three goals: 1) Refine the initial assignment of respondents to the clusters. 2) Identify those variables that offered a significant level of discrimination between clusters. 3) Determine the accuracy of assignment to the clusters or groups. The canonical correlation 2, calculated by the discriminant analysis program, indicated that 66.3% of the variance was explained by the variables that were significant at a .05 level. After comparing the mean scores of the discriminating variables across the three clusters, one cluster was identified as favoring technological literacy, one favored industrial technology education, and one was ambivalent. T-tests were used to determine if any significant difference existed between clusters or groups. It was of particular interest to this research that no significant difference was found related to the relative importance of construction. All groups concluded that construction should comprise approximately 10% of the technology education curriculum. Finally, a schedule was established which allocated various percentages of the curriculum to each of the 10 study areas or curriculum organizers as they relate to the three spheres of human/technology interaction. This schedule was based on the relative importance assigned by the technological literacy cluster. The technological literacy cluster offered the most balanced allocation of the technology education curriculum across the three spheres of human/technology interaction. / Ph. D.

Syftet med avhandlingen är att bidra till den ämnesdidaktiska kunskapsbasen för undervisning och lärande om tekniska system i grundskolan. Dagens teknikkomplexa samhälle är uppbyggt av system som vi människor interagerar med. Informations-, energi- och kommunikationssystem är exempel på tekniska system som vi kommer i kontakt med dagligen. Tekniska system ingår som en del av kunskapsinnehållet i den svenska grundskolans teknikämne, men forskning som rör teknikämnet visar att undervisning av tekniska system är begränsad och det råder osäkerhet kring vad lärande av tekniska system innebär. De övergripande frågeställningarna är: Hur uppfattar unga tekniska system? Hur kan ungas uppfattningar av tekniska system användas för att utveckla undervisningen om tekniska system? Vilken potential, att bidra till en ökad förståelse av teknik i dagens samhälle, har tekniska  system som kunskapsinnehåll i teknikämnet? Avhandlingen bygger på två studier som presenteras i fyra artiklar. I två av artiklarna fokuseras ungas uppfattningar av tekniska system och i två artiklar lyfts didaktiska dimensioner av tekniska system fram. En fenomenografisk ansats används för att kartlägga ungdomars olika sätt att erfara tekniska system genom empiriska undersökningar av kvalitativa skillnader i det kollektiva erfarandet av fenomenet. Resultatet av studierna indikerar att dimensioner av tekniska system och kritiska aspekter inom dessa dimensioner är avgörande för en utvecklad förståelse av tekniska system. Genom att lärare blir medvetna om ungas uppfattningar om tekniska system kan de med detta som utgångspunkt utveckla undervisningen. Inom den ämnesdidaktiska kunskapstraditionen ses den lärandes uppfattning av innehållet innan undervisningen startar som en betydelsefull aspekt av lärarens ämnesdidaktiska kompetens Det är därför viktigt att lärare är medvetna om dimensionerna och de kritiska aspekterna då de planerar och genomför undervisning för att kunna erbjuda kraftfulla sätt att lära om tekniska system. De didaktiska implikationerna, när det gäller tekniska system, lyfter fram aspekter av teknik som har betydelse för förståelsen av teknik även på ett mer generellt plan. Det handlar om kunskaper som aktiva medborgare i dagens teknikkomplexa samhälle behöver, så som insikter om krav på resurser, människans intentioner med och inblandning i tekniken samt hur teknikens struktur och organisation ser ut. Tekniska system som kunskapsinnehåll erbjuder en förståelse av teknik där viktiga medborgerliga aspekter som engagemang, konsekvensanalys och användaransvar kan synliggöras och problematiseras. / The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the field of technology education research, specifically that which concerns teaching and learning about technological systems. Today's technologically complex society is made up of a variety of systems that humans interact with. Information, energy and communication are examples of technological systems with which we are involved daily. Education in technology prepares young people for participating as active citizens in a technologyintensive society and therefore includes technological systems as part of the knowledge content in the Swedish compulsory school subject of technology. Research related to the technology subject shows that the teaching of technological systems is limited and there is uncertainty about what the learning entails. The overall questions which this thesis intends to investigate are: How do young people experience technological systems? How can young people’s experiences of technological systems be used to develop the teaching of technological systems? What potential does knowledge about  technological systems have in contributing to a better understanding of technology in today’s society? The thesis is based on two studies presented in four articles. Two of the articles focus on young people’s experiences of technological systems and the other two highlight pedagogical dimensions of technological systems for teaching and learning. The studies take the perspective of  the learners’, using a phenomenographic approach, and investigate young people’s ways of experiencing technological systems. To start from the learners’ experience is an important aspect of the tradition of pedagogical research that concerns content specific knowledge. The phenomenographic approach offers empirical ways of investigating qualitative differences in the collective experience of the phenomenon and an opportunity to highlight what teaching should focus on to create learning opportunities. The main result of the studies consists of knowledge about dimensions of technological systems and critical aspects within those dimensions. Together they offer a perspective for teaching, providing possible starting points for teachers when they plan instruction. If teachers address their own and young people’s awareness of dimensions of variation, it could enable more powerful ways of learning about technological systems. The pedagogical implications in terms of technological systems also point to aspects that are relevant for understanding technology on a more general level, namely skills which active citizens in today’s technologically complex society must possess. Technological systems knowledge offers an understanding of technology in which key aspects of civil commitment, impact and user responsibility can be made visible and thus  problematized.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisors: Dr. Pamela Sissi Carroll, Dr. Susan N. Wood, Florida State University, College of Education, Dept. of Middle and Secondary Education. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 16, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.