A study to identify common curriculum elements in technology education.

摘要

Purpose. One of the problems that has long confounded both technology and other educators, as well as the lay public, is the apparent lack of a coherent message about what technology education is. Furthermore, given the US's educational system's tradition of local control, many state technology education curricula seem to have been developed with little concern for the efforts of others even though similar goals are addressed. Despite this, there is considerable evidence to suggest that more commonality exists than is apparent at first glance.; Faced with a similar situation in the industrial arts field, Cochran conducted a milestone study in 1969 that identified the commonalities among innovative industrial arts curricula. A replication of Cochran's research would yield valuable information again today. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to analyze recent technology education curriculum/program guides to ascertain their shared curricular elements and common directions. The commonalities that emerged should help educators and program decision makers involved with technology education review, select, and implement those core elements most crucial to effective technology education. Identification of this core should also help international professionals see the commonality among what otherwise might be seen as disparate state technology education programs.; To achieve these goals, the study pursued three major objectives: (1) to conduct a historical review of industrial arts/technology education programs to understand the character of curriculum plans; (2) to identify and validate curricular elements that can be used to examine technology education curriculum/program guides; and (3) to use the identified curricular elements and rate their relevance to exemplary state curricula for the purpose of identifying the extent of shared vision in the field.; Procedure. The sequence of activities employed to pursue the objectives involved: (a) a historical review of industrial arts/technology education curricula, (b) selection of a National Expert Panel (NEP), (c) identification and selection of states with exemplary curriculum guides by the NEP, (d) development of an initial set of curriculum element statements, (e) validation of the initial curriculum elements by the NEP, (f) selection of a State Panel of practitioners from each exemplary state, (g) data collection, and (h) data analysis. Data collection used a Q-sort methodology where each member of the State Panel ranked fifty-seven curriculum elements in terms of the extent to which each described their state's technology education curriculum.; Conclusions. Five conclusions were reached: (a) it was concluded that the fifty-seven curricular elements represent a valid and appropriate structure describing the core of contemporary technology education curricula; (b) based on the examined state curriculum guides, curriculum change is indeed occurring and this change is moving the program from industrial arts to technology education; (c) the predominant content organizers used for technology education were consistent with, and/or derived from the profession's Jackson's Mill initiative, i.e., they are communication, transportation, manufacturing, and construction; (d) action based (hands on) instruction and problem solving activities are taking a leading position in the methodology advocated by the selected curriculum guides; and (e) the eight "high agreement and high descriptiveness" curriculum elements, that were identified by the study's composite indicator of the degrees of agreement and descriptiveness, characterize the commonality among America's exemplary state technology education curricula.