Learning Technological Concepts

Abstract

So far we have focused on concepts of, and attitudes towards, technology in general. Now we will go down one level in detail. In technology various concepts are used to understand why things function as they do. Engineers use such concepts when designing new artifacts. Those concepts are taught in schools and colleges as parts of the education of future engineers, and some of them are also regarded as necessary elements in the education of all citizens (for example the concept of systems, also because it is of wider relevance than for technology only). To what extent do students have an understanding of those concepts even before they have been taught those concepts in school? Perhaps surprisingly we do not know that much about this. For whatever reason research into students’ intuitive understanding of technological concepts has not been popular so far. In this section a kaleidoscope is presented of some of the few studies that are available in this respect.