Research as a Design Task

Operationalising pedagogical content knowledge research in technology education: Considerations for methodological approaches to exploring enacted practice

“…Necessitated through the difficulties associated with achieving consensus regarding disciplinary goals, the importance of considering a teacher's educational context is supported by variances in technology education curricula internationally (Banks & Williams, 2013). This is further supported through contentions in the literature regarding the language use to describe disciplinary goals, notably technological literacy (Petrina, 2000;Ingerman & Collier-Reed, 2011;Dakers, 2014a;Williams, 2017), technological capability (Black & Harrison, 1985;Kimbell & Stables, 2007;Gibson, 2008;Kimbell, 2011) and, more recently, technological competence (Ropohl et al, 2018). Although variances are apparent in different educational contexts and the research literature, Williams (2017) noted that there appears to be somewhat of a convergence of three broad conceptual principles and that disciplinary goals are generally constituted of an ability/use dimension, a knowledge and understanding dimension, and an awareness or appreciation of the relationships between technology, society and the environment.…”

“…In contrast to the depiction of amplifiers and filters of practice in science education (Gess-Newsome, 2015), Doyle et al (2019a) theorised that technology teachers' beliefs may have greater influence on the nature of enacted practices. Supported by the difficulties associated with the prescription of specific content knowledge for technology education practice (Williams, 2009;Kimbell, 2011), an ecologically situated model of enacted practice, teacher knowledge and teacher beliefs was proposed ( Figure 1). The model adopted the orientations towards teaching framework put forward by Friedrichsen et al (2010), accounting for the beliefs held by teachers that are perceived to influence their planning and enactment of teaching practices.…”

“…The difficulties associated with atomising the goals of technology education beyond these three conceptual principles have implications for the exploration of teachers' beliefs. Although it may appear intuitive to represent curricula as explicit content and utilise this in the development of an instrument to measure teachers' beliefs about the goals of technology education, the nature of technological activity itself is noted to be less concerned with the development of specific knowledge and skills, instead being described as an environment where there are often multiple approaches and appropriate situations to problems (Kimbell, 2011). Accordingly, it may be appropriate to consider teachers' beliefs about the goals and purposes of teaching technology in a holistic sense (Stables, 1997).…”

“…In contrast to conventional disciplines, where declarative content knowledge forms the boundary of a discipline, knowledge in technology education is recognised as having a unique interdependence with activity. As technological activity is conceived as goal-oriented (Norstr€ om, 2014;de Vries, 2016), 'relevant' knowledge only becomes apparent through engagement with the technological activity at hand (Kimbell, 2011). From this, depictions of explicit declarative technological knowledge become problematic as it is unclear what differentiates this knowledge from more conventional knowledge bases.…”

Examine In-Service Teachers’ Initial Perceptions Toward STEM Education in Thailand

“…The fourth question attempts to reveal teacher's perceptions of the significant competency in STEM education (Roehrig et al, 2021). The fifth question focuses on assessment, specifically for STEM education (Kimbell et al, 2004;Akiri et al, 2021;Shernoff et al, 2017). The sixth question attempts to elicit teacher's beliefs about how their organisation such as school or the Ministry of Education will support STEM teaching and learning in schools (Ejiwale, 2013;Shernoff et al, 2017).…”