BackgroundThe literature asserts that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education needs to be authentic. Although models and modelling provide a basis from which to increase authenticity by bridging the STEM disciplines, the idea of authentic STEM education remains challenging to define. In response, the aim of this study is to identify consensus on significant elements of authentic STEM education through models and modelling. Views were gathered anonymously over three rounds of questions with an expert panel. Responses were subjected to a multimethod analysis that pursued identification, consensus, and stability in the panels revealed propositions and themes around authentic STEM education through modelling.ResultsThe panel reached high consensus concerning the potential of STEM education to support learning across traditional subject borders through authentic problem solving. The panel also consented that modelling is indispensable for achieving real-world relevance in STEM education, and that model-based integrated STEM education approaches provide opportunities for authentic problem solving. Furthermore, results showed that integrating individual STEM subjects during teaching, in terms of including disciplinary knowledge and skills, requires specialised competence. Here, technology and engineering subjects tended to implicitly underpin communicated teaching activities aimed at STEM integration.Conclusions and implicationsThe panellists stress that STEM disciplines should be taught collaboratively at the same time as they are not in favour of STEM as a subject of its own but rather as a cooperation that maintains the integrity of each individual subject. Many respondents mentioned integrated STEM projects that included modelling and engineering design, although they were not specifically labelled as engineering projects. Thus, real-world STEM education scenarios are often viewed as being primarily technology and engineering based. The panel responses also implicate a need for multiple definitions of authenticity for different educational levels because a great deal of uncertainty surrounding authenticity seems to originate from the concept implying different meanings for different STEM audiences. These international Delphi findings can potentially inform integrated STEM classroom interventions, teacher education development, educational resource and curriculum design.

Bringing more girls and women into science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, is often highlighted as an aim in education and industry. A constantly growing body of research on engagement is driven by equity concerns caused by the unbalanced gender distribution in STEM. In this study, Swedish teenage girls on a three-day technology camp are in focus. The camp was an initiative with three goals: “Get girls interested, keep girls interested and provide knowledge about futures within technology professions”. We explored the participating girls’ technological activities and conceptions of technology at the camp. Data collection was conducted through participant observations and a focus group interview. Data were analysed using thematic analysis and a gender theoretical framework. Results show the camp presented uncertain notions of what technology can be, and traditionally male-oriented domains were “girlified”. However, girlified activities might not have been constructive in this context since the girls expressed interest in technology before the camp and showed few signs of gendering technology – they liked all kinds of technology. Girlified technology can, at its worst, give a false image of the future industrial work life that the camp organiser aimed to inspire. Despite this, the camp activities were still meaningful and relevant to the girls. The camp created opportunities for the girls to develop their sense of being technical and a feeling of belonging. Implications for technology classroom settings and future camps are to value practical work and improvisational design without leaving the teaching unreflected. This could be a way of engaging and familiarising girls with the multifaceted world of technology without girlifying it. In addition, a broad conception of technology could make gender codes less relevant and open new opportunities.

STEM—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—has become important as an educational construct and phenomenon in recent years. However, it is only just recently that STEM education has begun to be examined from a philosophical point of view. There is therefore a need for further investigation of its philosophical basis, particularly in relation to integrated STEM education (iSTEM). Recent conceptual and empirical studies emphasize the crucial role of design in achieving successful STEM integration, and design thinking has also lately gained traction in such integration. The aim of this study is to investigate an integrated philosophy of STEM education, based on the methodological backbone of design. The research methodology consisted of a critical review of the literature regarding the philosophy of STEM (education), science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and STEM education research, related to the current issues of integrating the various STEM subjects. We thus base the philosophical framework on philosophy and studies from/on the STEM subjects in education. It is concluded that from a methodological point of view, design holds promising affordances for unifying the STEM subjects through “pure STEM problems”. Design as part of, for instance, particular engineering design projects may consequently require the “design” of applicable scientific experiments as well as mathematics expressions and formulae specifically when engaging in technological modeling.

K-ULF, ”Kompensatorisk undervisning för lärande och forskning”, är KTHs del i den nationella försöksverksamheten ULF, eller ULF-avtal (”Utbildning, Lärande, Forskning”), som en del av Uppsala-noden. K-ULF-projektet startade våren 2020. Projektets organisation bygger på mötesplatser för lärare, lärarstudenter, lärarutbildare och forskare, där de tillsammans kan arbeta på lika villkor. Mötesplatserna som finns inom K-ULF är: Vetenskapens Hus (VH), en strategisk styrgrupp och en didaktisk arbetsgrupp. Dessa mötesplatser utgör grunden för ett systematiskt utvecklingsarbete för lärarprofessionen (Olsson & Brunner Cederlund, 2021). I linje med det nationella målet med ULF är K-ULFs syfte att ”utveckla och pröva hållbara samverkansmodeller mellan akademi och skola vad gäller forskning, skolverksamhet och lärarutbildning ge-nom att tydligare forskningsintegrera utbildningen och verksamhetsförlagd utbildning, och att studenters examensarbete (självständiga arbete) kan länkas till praktiknära forskning och skolutveckling utifrån veten-skaplig grund” (Institutionen för lärande, KTH, 2022). Benämningen ”Kompensatorisk undervisning för lärande och forskning” antyder också att man tar sig an skolans s.k. kompensatoriska uppdrag, nämligen att skapa förutsättningar för att alla elever ges goda förutsättningar att nå de nationella kunskapskraven. K-ULFs verksamhet har sedan 2020 växt och drivs nu av KTH i samarbete med Vetenskapens Hus och fem kommuner (huvudmän): Stockholms stad, Haninge kommun, Lidingö stad, Nynäshamns kommun och Värmdö kommun.

Denna rapport är en utvärdering av K-ULF projektets första fas (juni 2020–2022). Utvärderingen fokuserar K-ULF-projektets samverkans-modell utifrån deltagarnas perspektiv: huvudmän, rektorer, lärare, lärarstudenter, universitetslärare och forskare. Syftet med utvärderingen är att undersöka hur K-ULF har bidragit till att uppnå målen för ULFs försöksverksamhet, från deltagarnas perspektiv. I rapporten fokuseras:

• hur K-ULF bidrar till att uppnå målen för ULFs försöksverk-samhet – den hållbara samverkansmodellen – från deltagarnas perspektiv,
• den praktiknära forskningen inom K-ULF,
• K-ULFs uppskattade impact på lärare och elever på deltagande skolor,
• rekommendationer om prioriteringar i nästa fas.

För att få reda på deltagarnas perspektiv ombads samtliga deltagare i projektet att besvara en kvalitativ enkät. Enkäten var uppdelad i tre om-råden som rör K-ULF-projektet: syfte, organisation och innehåll. Totalt 25 deltagare besvarade enkäten och svar erhölls från samtliga grupper eller roller inom projektet, med en jämn fördelning mellan dem.

Resultatet visar att K-ULF-projektets organisation upplevs som mycket positiv av deltagarna och här nämns ord som funktionell och genomtänkt och att organisationen ger stora möjligheter till kunskapsutbyte. De re-gelbundna mötena i den didaktiska arbetsgruppen och i den strategiska styrgruppen utgör viktiga delar i organisationen. Dessa regelbundna mö-ten ger projektet kontinuitet i form av samarbete vilket utgör en god för-utsättning för att hålla fokus och styrfart i projektet. Idén om att skapa mötesplatser verkar således fylla sin funktion. Samarbetet upplevs väl-fungerande med ett stort engagemang och kontakten mellan organisationens olika delar fungerar mycket bra. Kommunikationen mellan deltagarna upplevs som positiv och man upplever att man får stöd, hjälp och feedback från olika arbetsgrupper. Kollegialt stöd lyfts fram som särskilt värdefullt och då framför allt om man är kollegor och har samma roll i projektet. Vidare känns innehållet intressant och innehållet sprids även vidare till andra lärare och huvudmän som inte deltar i projektet. Ibland kan det som kommuniceras upplevas som svårt att förstå och det nämns i detta sammanhang som ett ”forskarspråk”. Samtidigt uttrycks att ”forskarspråket” utgör en viktig del i kunskapsutvecklingen.

En svårighet i organisationen är en brist på engagemang från skolledningen som det upplevs av en del deltagare. Här nämns två förklaringar: 1) rektorer som slutar och 2) att K-ULF behöver få en tydligare plats i huvudmännens organisation, vilket verkar vara lättare hos mindre huvudmän och en större utmaning hos större huvudmän. Ytterligare en aspekt som lyfts bland deltagarna handlar om att det förefaller finnas otydligheter avseende uppdrag, roll och arbetsfördelning; här önskas en diskussion om forskares roll i projekten och vad man förväntas bidra med.

När det gäller den praktiknära forskningen så upplever deltagarna att K-ULF har utgått från lärarnas frågeställningar men att betydelsen av forskningen ofta är mer personlig. Flera av skollärarna vittnar om kon-kreta men fortfarande ganska personliga implikationer som att komma ”ur gamla hjulspår” och få ”nya idéer”. Å andra sidan finns också ett par kritiska synpunkter som just berörde att inte allas röster blev hörda. Här ifrågasätts huruvida enskilda lärares önskemål verkligen kan sägas spegla större frågeställningar som berör fler. I detta sammanhang ifrågasätts också om examensarbeten kan sägas vara forskning. Även om examensarbeten kanske inte formellt kan anses vara ”akademisk” forskning, så har i alla fall många av de lärare som deltagit i studien uttryckt att examensarbetena har bidragit med att:

• kunna förstå och se undervisningen i nytt ljus,
• få tankar om hur de kan utveckla undervisningen,
• kunna eller i alla fall velat diskutera dessa tankar vidare (McIntyre, 2005).

Resultaten pekar alltså på att examensarbetena kan vara ett fruktbart sätt att utföra praktiknära forskning i lärares vardagliga miljö, förutsatt att de får inflytande över arbetenas problemställningar. Problemet ver-kar snarare ha varit att inte alla delar av skolorganisationen (ännu) tagit del av möjligheten att inom K-ULF delta i praktiknära forskning. 

När det gäller impact och rekommendationer baseras de på resultat från vår enkätundersökning samt den ganska omfattande dokumentation som finns om K-ULF genom tidigare ULF-utvärderingar, forskningsrap-porter och konferenspaper. I korthet visar resultatet att deltagarna som besvarat enkäten önskar behålla strukturen och en långsiktig satsning med stabil finansiering och ett långsiktigt förhållningssätt även för den forskning som är knuten till projektet. K-ULFs impact har varit stark inom KTH och på huvudmannanivå i kommunerna och projektet har integrerats väl i KTHs lärarutbildning och ämnesdidaktiska forskning. Ge-nom styrgruppen och arbetsgruppen har också huvudmännens utbildningschefer och lärare involverats på ett tydligt sätt. 

Det finns också utvecklingsmöjligheter, och denna sammanfattning fokuserar på två sådana. Den första handlar om att skapa förutsättningar för ett större engagemang och en bättre förankring hos huvudmän och rektorer. I detta sammanhang nämns även att det behövs någon form av strategi för att informera och involvera deltagare som kommer in i en senare fas i projektet för att på så vis förankra och skapa goda förutsättningar. Den andra utvecklingsmöjligheten handlar om examensarbetenas utformning där det finns önskemål om mer delaktighet när det gäller hur skolornas ledning kan involveras i att identifiera kunskapsbehov som är relaterade till skolornas systematiska kvalitets- och utvecklings-arbete. Här lyfts en utmaning i att föra samman forskningsfokus som överensstämmer med skolornas kvalitets- och utvecklingsarbete med lärarnas behov och forskarnas intressen. Vidare behöver förutsättningarna för att locka studenter att skriva examensarbeten inom teknikämnet och naturvetenskapliga ämnen ses över då det fram till idag endast skrivits inom ämnesområdet matematik. 

Det finns flera delar i organisationen som fungerar mycket väl och som deltagarna önskar ha kvar i nästa fas. Deltagarna önskar behålla: 

• strukturen och en långsiktig satsning på samverkansmodellen med stabil finansiering,
• det verksamhetsnära perspektivet med det praktiknära samarbetet,
• de regelbundna mötena och att dessa även fortsättningsvis ska präglas av jämbördigt deltagande,
• ett fortsatt samarbete med lärarutbildning där K-ULF fortsätter utgöra en del av VFU-kurserna och examensarbeten,
• att skolorna även fortsättningsvis ges möjlighet till ett fortsatt samarbete och att den täta kontakten mellan KTH och VFU-skolor behålls.

Sammanfattningsvis är de flesta deltagare väldigt positiva till K-ULF som helhet. Deltagarnas inställning är i stort att K-ULF-projektet har ut-gått från skollärarnas dagliga behov i sina klassrum, och att de ingående projekt som initierats är grundade i verkliga behov och därför är praktiknära.

Societies have always been occupied with securing food supply and ensure environmental and human health. Scientific knowledge and technical level have, together with habitat and management patterns, shaped sanitation arrangements and recycling of resources. Because it is the same urban problems that are addressed by societies in different historical contexts, a longitudinal study may allow for novel ways to conjure food security and sanitation management issues in the present century.

We trace the historical transition over two centuries away from a circular economy to a more linear one in two Swedish cities, the capital Stockholm and the industrial city Norrköping, and show that big but rather slow changes occurred more or less constantly in these two urban settings. The driving forces have changed from only improving local conditions of sanitation and food production over to global and regional driving forces in this century affecting what local communities can or could do. The ongoing globalization positions the subjects of environmental and human health, recycling and food security in a new global perspective, where climate change and global resource boundaries will play a central role. We cannot continue to rely on trade that causes rainforest destruction elsewhere or harmful chemical consumer products that lead to loss of biodiversity and human health risks.

We need to put urban sanitation and food issues into this wider perspective with available remedial measures such as dietary changes, food waste reduction, soil less food production and building of new circular infrastructure. All urban areas in the world, including Stockholm and Norrköping in Sweden, need to adopt new strategies that again engage residents as well as public sectors and industry, including agriculture.

A recurring challenge for human societies has been the provision of freshwater and the disposal of wastewater. Initial systems were very rudimentary but became more and more complex as cities and towns emerged around the world over time. With the Industrial Revolution and rapidly burgeoning urbanisation in western Europe and the United States in the 19th century, water supply and sewerage eventually were designed and constructed as citywide technological systems. The aim of this chapter is to describe and analyse the most important stages of technological change in urban wastewater management during the period 1830 to 2010, with examples taken primarily from Sweden, northern Europe, and the United States. The chapter begins with a brief discussion of wastewater management before the modern era, then turns to technological change in modern wastewater management and practices over three periods: 1830–1900, from drainage to sewerage – the British public health movement and the evolution of sewerage systems; 1900–1950, the bacteriological health paradigm and the dawn of wastewater treatment; and 1950–2010, wastewater innovation and renovation, suburban sprawl, and the age of environmental awakening.

This article elaborates the key aspects of the nature, roles, and implementation of models and modeling in STEM education. Regarding nature, although models and modeling differ between the STEM subjects there are also similarities, for example, concerning visual models and representations. The roles of models in the STEM subjects are dominated by conceptual models, while in technology/engineering manipulation of physical models is also important. Furthermore, common to all STEM subjects is the construction, evaluation, revision and (re-)use of models. Concerning the implementation of models and modeling in STEM education, evidence points to the relevance of including modeling in authentic engineering activities.

The common purpose of models is to provide simplified representations of other phenomena. Depending on type, they are suitable for communication, documentation, prognostication, problem solving, and more. Various types of models, such as drawings, mock-ups, flow charts, and mathematical formulae, are important tools in engineering work. An introduction to the area of technological modelling is therefore an essential component in secondary technology and engineering education, both to prepare for future studies and work, and to instil a general technological literacy. Models in the form of technical drawings and physical models are mentioned in several international curricula and standards for secondary education, but the nature of models or the modelling process are seldom elaborated upon. The purpose of this article is to investigate the ‘why?’, the ‘what?’, and the ‘how?’ of teaching and learning about models and modelling in secondary technology and engineering education. We discuss the roles of models and modelling and suggest a modelling framework for technology and engineering education consisting of a six-step modelling process that can be used in education with increasing level of complexity: identification, isolation, simplification, validation, verification, and presentation. Examples from Swedish curricula and secondary school textbooks are used to highlight the progress (or lack thereof) concerning model creation and model use. It was found that especially validation and verification are downplayed or missing in these accounts. Special attention needs to be given to the simplification step, where the balance between simplicity and realism often leads to difficult decisions in the modelling process.

In technology education, assessment is challenging and underdeveloped as it is a nascent practice and teachers do not have a well-defined subject tradition to lean on when assessing students. The aim of this study is to explore Swedish secondary technology teachers’ cognitive beliefs about assessing students’ learning of technological systems, in relation to the assessment tools they use. Data for the study were collected through a questionnaire which was completed by 511 Swedish technology teachers in lower secondary education (grades 7–9). The data were analysed statistically in three main steps. Exploratory factor analysis revealed underlying dimensions in teachers’ cognitive beliefs, which was followed by correlation analysis to discern associations between dimensions of cognitive beliefs. Finally, comparisons were made between groups of teachers to discern how teachers’ cognitive beliefs are influenced by their experience and educational background. The results show that additional education in the technology and engineering fields relates to more positive cognitive beliefs concerning teachers’ ability to assess students’ learning of technological systems. Teachers’ cognitive beliefs about assessment therefore did not primarily relate to the content of technological systems per se but to increased engineering and technology competence more broadly, which may indicate the importance of a comprehensive technological knowledge base in order to be confident in assessment. Furthermore, strong cognitive beliefs about assessment were connected specifically to local, regional and national technological systems, which are generally well-known and visible types of systems, and to the human, socio-technical dimensions of the systems. Cognitive beliefs about knowledge for assessment were also associated with positive attitudes to assessment tools that followed the formative tradition, which may be explained by the prevalence of procedural epistemic practices and modelling in the design and understanding of technological systems. Technology teachers would need additional in-service courses in engineering to broaden their knowledge and increase their cognitive beliefs about assessment. Formative assessment should also be preferred, and it might be appropriate to begin teaching and assessment with well-known local and regional infrastructural systems with a clear socio-technical dimension.

Hösten 2022 infördes en ny läroplan för den svenska grundskolan, Lgr22, som också innehåller nya kursplaner. För teknikämnet innebär denna förändring att, i jämförelse med tidigare kursplaner, kunskapsinnehåll som relaterar till teknisk förändring blir ytterligare förstärkt. Syftet med den här artikeln är att definiera vad som kan vara kunskap, begrepp och progression när det gäller teknisk förändring, baserat på min egen forskning inom teknikens didaktik och teknikhistoria. Artikeln lyfter utifrån tre didaktiska modeller fram centrala kunskapsområden, begrepp och progression relaterade till teknisk förändring och teknikhistoria som innehåll i ämnet teknik.

It is generally understood that scientists and engineers are needed in an industrial, technologically complex society, and engineering professions also have a high status. Comprehensive, pre-university technology education, however, often has to struggle for its place in the school curriculum, despite the fact that it constitutes the foundation for all tertiary education. The aim of this chapter is to argue for and discuss the philosophical and political value of comprehensive technology education in early 21st century society. It is concluded that the justification of technology education in the school curriculum and teacher education curriculum is as much political as it is philosophical, and that future citizens will need to acquire technological multiliteracies. Philosophical questions and political decisions concerning technology, now and in the future, relate to the whole designed and natural worlds, and if anything is certain it is that a future technologically multiliterate person will need a range of technological knowledge and skills to meet global challenges, in the broadest sense.

Teacher education programs have the dual task of teaching specific subject content while also providing examples of how this content can be taught in schools. This task is especially important, and also problematic, when it comes to technology and science education, where hands-on components such as design/construction exercises, laboratory exercises, and excursions are central epistemic practices. When COVID-19 hit, Swedish universities were forced to change from campus-based teaching to online distance education, termed “emergency remote teaching (ERT).” The present study aims to investigate university teachers’ experiences of how hands-on components in science and technology education worked in the ERT mode that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis was performed with a social semiotics and community of inquiry framework, and shows that both the type of instruction and the subject content were impacted. In particular, the reduced opportunities for students to apply scientific and technical methods and the reduced ability of teachers to determine whether the students had understood their instruction generated new ways of communicating and supporting the students’ learning. Therefore, analysis of meaning making in science and technology online-learning contexts needs to address the topics of the nature of science (NOS) and the nature of technology (NOT). An extended, three-dimensional model of meaning making is suggested.

There is currently a trend toward introducing computational thinking in schools, and one popular tool to carry this out is through visual programming. A literature review focusing on visual programming and its effects on learning is still lacking, however; especially in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects. The aim of this literature review is to investigate and synthesise the findings of research studies on what students potentially learn in STEM subjects from visual programming. Database searches resulted in 25 studies that were analysed qualitatively. Results showed that by engaging in visual programming students do learn to code, but several basic programming concepts are still challenging. Visual programming for learning in STEM subjects is limited concerning science education, whereas it seems as if visual programming could work as a methodical glue for other STEM subjects. By introducing visual programming, our findings indicate that mathematics, technological, and engineering knowledge and skills, as well as basic programming knowledge and skills, are practised and reinforced. However, teachers need to be aware of which competences are in play in the specific teaching and learning modules, in order to support students’ learning.

The overall aim of the school subject technology is to develop pupils’ understanding of technological solutions in everyday life. A starting point for this study is that it is important for teachers in technology to have knowledge of pupils’ prior conceptions of the subject content since these can both support and hinder their learning. In a previous study we found that when pupils (age 7) talk about digital technology and programming, they often refer to out-of-school experiences such as films, television programmes and books. Typically, their descriptions include robots with some form of intelligence. Hence, it seems like children’s culture may have an impact on the conceptions they bring to the technology classroom. In light of this, it is vital that technology teachers have knowledge about how robots and artificial intelligence (AI) are portrayed in children’s culture, and how pupils perceive these portrayals. However, knowledge about these aspects of technology in children’s culture is limited.The purpose of this study is to investigate how artifacts with artificial intelligence are portrayed in television programmes and literature aimed at children. This study is the first step in a larger study aiming to examine younger pupils’ conceptions and ideas about artificial intelligence. A novice conception of artificial intelligence can be described as an understanding of what a programmed device may, or may not, “understand” in relation to a human, which includes discerning th edifferences between the artificial and the human mind. Consequently, as a theoretical framework for investigating how artificial intelligence is portrayed in children’s culture, the concepts of Theoryof Mind (ToM) and Theory of Artificial Mind (ToAM), are used. The empirical material presented in this paper, i.e. four children’s books and a popular children’s television programme, was analysed using a qualitative thematic analysis. The results show that the portrayal of AI is ambiguous. The structure and function of the robot has elements of both human and machine, and the view of the human fictional characters of the robot is sometimes that of a machine, sometimes of a human. In addition, the whole empirical material includes portrayals of AI as a threat as well as a saviour. As regards implications, there is a risk that without real-life experiences of robots, the representations children’s books and other media convey can lead to ambivalent feelings towards real robots.

From a philosophical viewpoint, technological design is about connecting what is desirable with what is technically possible. Technology itself plays a major role in design processes, not only because technology development is what designing is all about, but also since the existing technology at any given point in time frames what is possible to achieve in terms of new outcomes. A limiting role of technology in design, education and other societal activities goes under the concept of technological determinism and has arguably been one of the most significant points of debate in the social sciences in the last decades. The aim of this article is to investigate how philosophical, sociological and historical research, as well as design and innovation research about technological determinism, could be fruitfully reconsidered in technology education. The analysis yielded three novel findings about the nature of technological determinism. First of all, technological determinism can take the form of an idea, theory or a way of explaining technology development in history or the present, but it can also take the form of actual material structures that—implicitly or explicitly—permeate and influence society, or, at least, this is what some researchers claim. Secondly, technological determinism is not just something that is the result of a bird’s eye view of technology and society or when we study technology as part of the macro level of society. Determinism can appear on all levels, even the micro level. Thirdly, like its counterpart social/societal determinism, technological determinism is not necessarily a “bad”thing, but a natural result of design being a balance between what is societally desirable and technically possible. The most critical issue from the point of view of technological literacy is to promote the idea that it is humans that design and retain control over technology.

Feedback mechanisms make control of systems automatic and are thus inherent features of many technologies that surround us in our daily lives. Feedback is thus considered important to understand in technology education, although it isregarded as difficult and often not introduced to students until upper secondary level. Given the central role of feedback in technology and engineering, it is surprising that there is virtually no research on how students of any age conceive of and/or learnabout feedback in the technology and engineering education literature. The aim of this chapter is to report a two-cycle intervention to improve Swedish secondary pre-service technology student teachers’ conceptions of feedback in technological systems and to generalize some possible suggestions based on this study. Eleven student teachers altogether took part in the two cycles of the intervention, taking a pre-test prior to it and a post-test afterwards. Although this is a small sample, overall the findings indicate that the student group as a whole performed slightly better in the post-test than in the pre-test, which was particularly obvious in cycle 1. Incycle 2, the students did not perform quite as well in the post-test as in the pre-test, despite an improved intervention based on the findings in cycle 1. The findings also suggest that some teachers understood the systemic aspects of feedback mechanisms better after the intervention. On the other hand, no student reached an expanded understanding, and most conceptions were rather vague. Furthermore, there was a general lack of atomistic conceptions, for example, sensors and how they work in a control system. This study thus confirms previous research about the lack of essential device knowledge among student teachers.

Integrated STEM education aims for teaching and learning that goes beyond the individual disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Although authenticity is a widely used term in the literature, little is known about the meaning and application of the concept. The aim of this study is to systematically explore international views of authenticity in integrated STEM education. An online survey was responded to by twenty-eight experienced researchers and practitioners in science, technology, engineering, mathematics as well as related educational disciplines from around the world. We labelled the acquired participants the STEM expert panel, with expertise in STEM education, curriculum development, and the STEM root disciplines. The STEM expert panel responded to three open-ended questions that probed their opinions concerning opportunities and limitations of integrating the STEM disciplines. Data were analysed thematically and iteratively to reveal salient categories of authenticity. In terms of findings, views included three overarching themes. Firstly, experts opined that integrated STEM education requires authentic, real-world problems that support innovative and critical thinking capabilities in students. Secondly, real-world STEM education scenarios are in the panel’s view primarily technology and engineering based. Thirdly, model-based integrated STEM education approaches provide opportunities to include real-life solutions and genuine problem solving that are not otherwise possible. Consequently, what is meant by authenticity and authentic learning was addressed, not for whom something is authentic. Findings also suggest that although the international STEM experts often foregrounded ‘S’ and ‘M’ principles in their descriptions of STEM education, the ‘T’ and ‘E’ emerged as fundamental to implementing authenticity. Thus, the panellists viewed technology and engineering as providing authentic contexts that act as bridges between school and real-world settings.

Technological systems as a school curriculum component is complex, under-developed and under-researched. In this chapter, we present results from an investigation of school students’ knowledge about technological systems, hypothesizing the occurrence of different “qualities of knowledge”. A test instrument was distributed to 26 groups of students (n = 56) in a Swedish grade eight class (14–15 year olds), and data analysis was carried out using a qualitative, hermeneutic method. The findings show that the students’ qualities of knowledge regarding theoverall structure of the systems was quite advanced, but the systems or the societal context were not elaborated upon with any detail. The purpose of the system could be connected to humans and society, but students did not offer a descriptionof the overall purpose. The flows that the students described were only of matter (water, wastewater) but not energy or information. The system boundary was alsoelusive, except for waste coming out of the sewer system and other environmental consequences. Thus, the test instrument was useful to gauge students’ qualities of knowledge, especially regarding system structure, but with respect to some other system aspects the validity might need to be further improved.

Lärarutbildningar har ett dubbelt uppdrag. Dels ska studenterna få kunskaper i att undervisa ett specifikt ämnesinnehåll, dels ska studenterna få exempel på hur ämnesinnehållet kan undervisas om i skolan. Detta uppdrag är särskilt viktigt och på samma gång problematiskt i teknik och naturvetenskapliga ämnen, där praktiska konstruktionsövningar, laborationer och exkursioner ingår som centrala kunskapspraktiker. Då covid-19 slog till tvingades svenska lärosäten att på kort tid ställa om från campusbaserad undervisning till distansundervisning, s.k. emergency remote teaching (ERT). I den här studien undersöks hur tre universitetslärare upplever att praktiska moment som laborationer, exkursioner och konstruktionsövningar inom naturvetenskaps- och teknikundervisning på grundlärarutbildningen fungerat som ERT. Av analysen framgår att både undervisningens form och ämnesinnehåll påverkades. Studenternas möjlighet att själva tillämpa praktiska naturvetenskapliga och tekniska arbetssätt minskade. Vidare minskade lärarnas möjlighet att veta om studenterna förstått undervisningen, vilket genererade nya sätt att kommunicera och stötta studenternas lärande.

It is important for students to have knowledge about the basic characteristics of technological systems, because they differ in crucial respects comparedto single technological artefacts. Moreover, many technological systems have a farreaching impact on society and the environment, while at the same time they aresocially shaped and controlled by human beings. In the literature such systemsare often called socio-technical systems. The aim of this chapter is to investigatethe key characteristics of technological systems in time and space, in order toinform teaching of technological systems. The specific characteristics of technological systems include them being: socio-technical with both societal and technicalcomponents; developed by system builders and managed by professional organizations; with a spatial scope ranging from local/city-wide, regional, national to globalnetworks; dependent on control features including feedback loops as crucial mechanisms for making the systems stable. These technological systems also evolve—and sometimes devolve—in distinct phases and in particular societal, economic andgeographical contexts, which may have repercussions when they are transferred.Furthermore, the systems are dependent on each other which over time and spaceleads to an entanglement of systems. Technological systems, finally, have a hugeimpact on the environment, which is why students will need to critically considerthe human dependence on systems. This chapter introduces a number of systemsconcepts that might also be fruitfully used as educational concepts in teaching abouttechnological systems. This way students can learn to generalize knowledge of technological systems, so that they can take on, understand and critique different kindsof systems, even ones that have not been designed yet.

When studying attitudes toward technology education, the affective attitudinal component has primarily been the focus. This study focuses on how the affective, cognitive and behavioral attitudinal components of technology education can be incorporated using a two-step survey: the traditional PATT-questionnaire (PATT-SQSE) and the recently developed Mitcham Score questionnaire. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship among the cognitive, affective and potential behavioural components of students attitudes toward technology in a Swedish context, using the PATT-SQ-SE instrument including the Mitcham score open items. Results of the analyses show that relationships among the attitudinal components are observable. The results also imply that relationships among the attitudinal components are different for girls than boys. A key factor for the participating students attitudinal relations was interest (affective component) in technology education. An individual interest in technology education was related to both the cognitive component and behavioral intention. Another key relationship, for girls, was that the cognitive component had a strong relationship with behavioral intention, which was not the case for boys. Based on the observed relations between the cognitive, affective and behavioural components we have identified two key implications for educational practice: Girls should learn a broader conception of technology in technology education, if we want them to pursue technology-related careers to a higher degree; Students interest in technology should be stimulated through engaging tasks in technology education.

Background: Authenticity in schools has been highlighted asimportant for improving students’ engagement and learning, andto prepare them for future job markets, especially in science andtechnology.Purpose: This study investigates students’ perceived authenticityof a developed innovation project when implemented in an uppersecondary technology education program.Sample: Three cohorts of students (n = 199) attended a first-yeartechnology course at a Swedish upper secondary school in 2016,2017 and 2018, respectively. In addition, eleven students from the2016 cohort were interviewed two years later to obtain their viewson how the innovation project in the first-year course influencedtheir performance in a subsequent advanced technology coursetaken in 2017–2018.Design and Methods: Groups of students participated in the firstphase of an innovation project in the first-year course, a five-weekmodule, cooperatively designing solutions to real-world problems.A Likert scale questionnaire measured the degree of perceivedauthenticity in line with Herrington, Reeves and Oliver’s (2010)key elements. Focus group interviews were conducted afterthe second phase – a 20-week follow-up module in the subsequentadvanced course – about how authentic they perceived the firstand second phases to be.Results: A questionnaire measured the degree of perceivedauthenticity of the students for the first phase, for each of thethree years. Coaching and scaffolding received the highest ratingsacross all three years, whereas Reflection was perceived as havingthe lowest authenticity. In a qualitative component of the studystudents found both phases positive, and five new themes ofstudents’ perception of their experiences were revealed.Conclusions: The similarities in perceived authenticity between thethree cohorts suggest consistency in students’ perceptions ofauthenticity. However, they did not feel that the project gavethem the opportunity to reflect on their learning. According tointerviews conducted two years later, they perceived their experiencesof the innovation project as having induced creativity, commitment,ownership, motivation, and real-world connection,although at times it was also a challenge to think for themselvesand to collaborate with others.KEYWORDSStudent perceptions;authentic learning;innovation; technologyeducation; high schoolCONTACT

In engineering programs, systems thinking capability has been promoted for a long time. The capability of students to apply various systems thinking approaches is not only supported by educational staff, but also highly required by various employers. The aim of the study is to investigate the inclusion of systems thinking aspects in the Mechanical Engineering program at Linköping University. Two research questions address this aim. According to involved teachers, (1) What aspects of systems thinking are included in the Master Program in Mechanical Engineering?, and (2) What teaching and learning activities concerning systems thinking are included in the Master Program in Mechanical Engineering? Empirical data was gathered through focus group interviews with involved teachers from two Master profiles. The results indicate that systems thinking is present in the respective Master profiles, however not explicitly communicated with the students. Systems thinking is often coupled with disciplinary knowledge, which supports CDIO standard 3. Some examples of how systems thinking is taught relating to disciplinary knowledge (CDIO standard 7) were presented by the teachers. Examples of teaching activities specifically aimed at systems thinking were however missing, alongside examination of systems thinking in particular.

Early twenty-first-century society is permeated by different kinds of technological systems. Such systems attract a great deal of research in different academic disciplines, but in education, research on technological systems as a comprehensive element in schools, tertiary institutions and universities is limited. This edited book was written by a group of scholars from a variety of educational disciplines with the majority from technology, engineering and science education, with the goal of summarizing, synthesizing and possibly expanding current research on the teaching and learning of technological systems. The aim of this final chapter is to synthesize research on the teaching and learning of technological systems as it has been presented in the book.

Background The subject of technology looks different depending on context. There is also an epistemological complexity to technological knowledge in technology education. Purpose To gain a deeper understanding of the epistemological foundations of the subject of technology and technology teaching, the teachers views are needed. The aim of this study is to examine how teachers discuss technology education, with a particular focus on how they talk about technological knowledge. Sample 19 Technology teachers from compulsory school in Sweden participated. Design and methods Through focus groups, teachers views of knowledge in technology education were collected and then analysed. Results The results consist of three parts. Firstly, it was found that the teachers were unfamiliar with discussing epistemology in technology education. Secondly, interpreting their views of knowledge in technology education through a theoretical framework for knowledge in technology education yielded examples of knowledge from the three constituent categories: technical skills, technological scientific knowledge, and socio-ethical technical understanding. Finally, an inductive analysis revealed two categories based on the teachers broader views of knowledge: civic capabilities and engineering capabilities. Conclusion Overall, the results provide an understanding of teachers ways of describing technological knowledge. The teachers perceived the term knowledge in a broader way than traditional epistemology, including capabilities in their descriptions. We propose a new perspective on the character of knowledge and capability in technology education, called technology education competence. The results of this study point to important aspects of the nature of the subject, which might lead to reflection about what knowledge should be considered of value in the future regarding research but especially development of curricula.

In recent years, digital technology, programming, and computational thinking have been incorporated as curriculum components in technology education in many countries across the globe. This development has been cheered on by politicians, industrialists, teachers, and software companies, but it has also met with resistance. Yet, few would deny that digital technologies are indeed technologies, and, as such, they should be included in technology education. The aim of this paper is to discuss how a unified theory of digital and analogue technology could be forged philosophically, and suggest some implications for technology education. A post-phenomenological model of human-technology relations was employed as analytical tool. It is concluded that both digital and analogue technologies could be seen as technical artefacts with a dual nature and technologies of representation. The dual nature of technical artefacts, that is, their functional/intentional and physical dimensions, can be mirrored in the abstract programming language that on its own has a mathematical semantics, but once we include a specification/intention, this changes the program into a technical artefact. Representational technologies could include everything from simple control systems to computers to AI systems, and it would be possible to conceive of the analogue and digital parts of these technologies as different components of their representational capacity; a component could either be seen as representing (concrete, analogue) or represented (abstract, digital), but part of the same representational system that makes up the technology. In both these “dual” perspectives on technology, artefacts and systems could be viewed from a common point of view, and may consist of digital/abstract and analogue/concrete components that together make up the technology. One important implication for technology education is that teaching needs to involve both abstract and concrete technological components. When programming, for instance, students need to learn not only about the code or software in itself, but also about what digital technology does in terms of solving problems and achieving technical purposes.

There is not one single global version of technology education; curricula and standards have different forms and content. This sometimes leads to difficulties in discussing and comparing technology education internationally. Existing philosophical frameworks of technological knowledge have not been used to any great extent in technology education. In response, the aim of this article is to construct a heuristic framework for technology education, based on professional and academic technological knowledge traditions. We present this framework as an epistemological tripod of technology education with mutually supporting legs. We discuss how this tripod relates to a selection of epistemological views within the philosophy of technology. Furthermore, we apply the framework to the Swedish and English technology curricula, to demonstrate its utility as an analytic tool when discerning differences between national curricula. Each leg of the tripod represents one category of technological knowledge: (1) technical skills, (2) technological scientific knowledge and (3) socio-ethical technical understanding. The heuristic framework is a conceptual model intended for use in discussing, describing, and comparing curriculum components and technology education in general, and potentially also as support for planning and conducting technology teaching. It may facilitate common understanding of technology education between different countries and technology education traditions. Furthermore, it is a potentially powerful tool for concretising the components of technological literacy.

Feedback mechanisms make control of systems automatic and are thus inherent features of many technologies that surround us in our daily lives. Feedback is thus considered important to learn in technology education, although it is regarded as difficult and often not introduced to students until upper secondary level. Given the central role of feedback in technology and engineering it is surprising that there is virtually no research on how students of any age conceive of and/or learn about feedback in the technology and engineering education literature. The aim of this paper is to report on and evaluate an intervention to improve Swedish secondary pre-service technology student teachers’ conceptions of feedback in technological systems. Five student teachers took part in the intervention, taking a pre-test prior to, and a post-test after, this intervention. Although this is a small sample, the findings indicate that the student group as a whole performed better in the post-test than in the pre-test. The findings also suggest that some teachers understood the systemic, macro aspects of feedback mechanisms better after the intervention. On the other hand, no student reached an expanded understanding, and most conceptions were rather vague. Furthermore, there was a general lack of atomistic conceptions, relating to a micro understanding, for example, sensors and how they work in a control system. This study thus confirms previous research about the lack of essential device knowledge among student teachers. Some implications for the continuation of the study are suggested based on these findings.

Assessment of students’ technological knowledge is a challenge for teachers. This stems not only from the inherent complexity of technological knowledge but also from the short history of technology education and its assessment practices. Furthermore, technological systems as a curriculum component is complex, under-developed and under-researched. The aim of this study is to investigate ‘qualities of knowledge’ about technological systems, by constructing and evaluating with students in secondary education a test instrument about water supply and sewerage. The test instrument was distributed to 32 students in a Swedish grade eight class (14–15 year olds), and data analysis was carried out using a qualitative, hermeneutic method. The findings show that the students’ qualities of knowledge regarding the overall structure of the systems was quite advanced,but the systems or the societal context were not elaborated upon with any detail. The purpose of the system could be connected to humans and society, but students did not offer a definition of the overall purpose. The flows that the students described were only of matter (water, wastewater) but not energy or information. The system boundary was also elusive, except for waste coming out of the sewer system and other environmental consequences. Thus,the test instrument “worked” in the sense that it was possible to gauge students’ qualities of knowledge, especially regarding system structure, but the validity might need to be improved with respect to some system aspects.

Technological systems are interwoven into the very fabric of modern society to such an extent that we often take them for granted and they almost become invisible to us, because much of the infrastructure is hidden in the ground beneath us or behind walls. Many modern technological systems are also abstract in the sense that they include invisible connections and flows, for example, in cellular phone communications or GPS navigation. These systems also have societal components such as organizations, legislation and operators. Technological systems thus challenge traditional teaching and learning related to artefacts in technology education, since systems are much more difficult to grasp and also have some different characteristics and dynamics compared to single objects. The aim of this chapter is to address this challenge by presenting and discussing the characteristics of technological systems in relation to teaching and learning about systemic aspects of our lifeworld. We suggest four pedagogies to achieve this: interface pedagogy, holistic pedagogy, historical pedagogy and design pedagogy. Furthermore, we propose two ways of delimiting systems through two types of boundaries that are crucial in this regard: the systems horizon and the system border.

The aim of this article is to investigate how Swedish teachers manage the uncertainty and complexity associated with sustainable development (SD) as a field of knowledge, in relation to the requirements in the school curriculum. Underlying the whole concept of sustainable development is the vision that there is a possible solution to the ecological, economic and social problems created by humans. However, it is not so clear what this solution actually means in practice. The article builds on an analysis of transcribed individual and group interviews with 40 teachers at Swedish lower and upper secondary schools, related to the topic of sustainable development as a field of knowledge. A thematic analysis was carried out by identifying four broad themes, including dominating discourses. The results indicate that there is a lack of vision among the teachers for a future sustainable society, while at the same time, it seems to be taboo to talk about what an unsustainable society might mean in the long run. Presentations of the problems and knowledge of what causes them must always be combined with instructions on how problems can be solved and how pupils can influence their own future and help create sustainable development. The starting point for such a solution-oriented approach to SD is based on an assumption that individual behaviour is essential to achieving sustainable development and thus that individual responsibility is crucial. This focus leads to individual consumer choices, behaviours and lifestyles at the heart of teaching, while progressive, alternative visions and critical perspectives are downplayed.

Variance in interest and engagement by gender is a complex and long-standing research agenda in the field of technology education. Studies report that girls are more reluctant to participate in technology education, less interested in the subject and more negative towards technology than boys. It is argued that specific attitudes and roles hinder girls from engaging in technology education because technology is presented as a predominantly male domain, which fuels ideas about what technological agency is as well as whose interest in technology and what kind of technology are regarded as legitimate. There is, however, the potential to improve female engagement if we can gain knowledge about what girls do during lessons and how they think about themselves when learning technology. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the self-image of girls aged 9 to 12 when participating in primary technology education, by using Harding’s (1986) three gender levels: the symbolic, the structural and the individual. The methods used for this study were participant observations during technology classes followed by a focus group interview. From the perspective of Harding’s three levels of gender, the analysis of the observations and the focus group interview reveals that girls confirm the prevailing male norms and conceptions that are linked to what technology is and what it means “to be technical”, despite the fact that the teacher introduces gender-neutral activities. However, there is an ambiguity in our findings because the girls also resist the self-image of not being technical, especially when they work together and have ownership of their work with and learning about technology.

This commentary expands the notion that models and modelling can be used as a basis to foster an integrated and authentic STEM education and STEM literacy. The aim is to synthesize key publications that document relationships between authenticity, models and modelling, and STEM education. The implications of the synthesis are as follows: authenticity must be viewed as a cornerstone of STEM literacy; models and modelling processes can bridge the gap between STEM disciplines through authentic practices; models and modelling should be used as a means to promote STEM literacy and the transfer of knowledge and skills between contexts, both in and out of the STEM disciplines; modelling activities can serve as a meaningful route toward authentic STEM education; teaching authentic modelling processes must be rooted in explicit and tested frameworks that are based on the practice of the STEM disciplines; and, authentic STEM education should be driven by developing interaction between STEM subjects in parallel with maintaining the integrity of each subject. If this vision is to be reinforced, it is of utmost importance that implementing any model-based authentic educational activities are underpinned by evidence-based frameworks and recommendations for teaching practice. It is therefore imperative that intended model-based pedagogies for STEM education classrooms are further researched, in order to contribute to an integrated STEM literacy.

The aim of this study is to review internationally published scientific literature on the subject of girls’ engagement in technology education, in order to identify the most common descriptions of girls’ engagement with technology education, girls’ technological activities, and the relationship between girls and technology. After a scoping review of the literature, 20 relevant articles were identified and included in the study; they were analysed using content analysis. The results show that, according to the reviewed studies, girls are less interested in and have less positive attitudes towards technology (education) than boys. They are also less likely to choose a technology- or STEM-oriented occupa-tion. Several of the included studies venture possible explanations as to why this is and refer mainly to cultural factors. Those studies that do define the type of technology used in girls’ activities mostly describe a neutral, or male kind of “nuts and bolts” technology. As regards girls’ relationship to tech-nology, there is potential for improving female engagement using apparently simple means; for ex-ample, making sure the social context of teaching is adapted to girls. The results of the literature review are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and can be used as a guide for educators and researchers in the area. In particular, the reasons for girls’ lower interest in technolo-gy education compared to boys need to be further researched, and it may be that researchers need to study girls in their own right, not in perpetual comparison with boys, in order to come closer to an answer

STEM – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – has become ubiquitous in education. How STEM and STEM education are to be defined is still a matter of debate, however, and it is only just recently that STEM education has been probed from a philosophical point of view. The need for a philosophical basis for STEM education is therefore fundamental. The aim of this study is thus to investigate specifically the role of the “T” and “E” in STEM, and how they not only may be fruitfully integrated with the “S” and “M”, as part of a philosophy of STEM education, but also potentially form a methodological backbone of such a philosophy when it comes to design. The research question that underpinned the study is: What are the affordances of Mitcham’s (1994) fourfold philosophical framework of technology for unifying the STEM subjects, with particular consideration of the “T” and “E”? The research methodology consisted of a qualitative meta-synthesis of the literature regarding the philosophy of technology and engineering, technology education, and the current issues of integrating the various STEM subjects. We conclude that from a methodological point of view – Mitcham’s “activity” – the design in technology (“T”) and engineering (“E”) holds the most promising affordances for unifying the four STEM subjects. Design as part of particular design projects may require the “design” of applicable scientific experiments as well as the design of applicable mathematics expressions and formulae specifically when modelling in “E” (and “T”).

Educational research on attitudes shows that both teaching and student learningare affected by the attitudes of the teacher. The aim of this study is to examine technologyteachers’ perceptions of and attitudes towards teaching technology in Swedish compulsoryschools, focusing on teachers’ perceived control. The following research question is posed:How do the teachers perceive self-efficacy and context dependency in teaching technology?Qualitative interviews were performed with 10 technology teachers in the compulsoryschool (ages 7–16), and the data was analysed using thematic analysis. Based on an attitudeframework, three sub-themes of self-efficacy were found: experience, education andinterest, subject knowledge, and preparation. Furthermore, four sub-themes of contextdependency were found; collegial support, syllabus, resources and status. The results showthat, according to the teachers in this study, self-efficacy mainly comes from experience,education and interest. Moreover, contextual factors can both limit and boost the teachers,but overall there are negative attitudes because of a lack of support and resources, whichimpedes the teaching. Teachers educated in technology education generally express morepositive attitudes and thus seem to have advantages in relation to technology teaching, butstill they sometimes express negative attitudes in the field of perceived control. Someimplications of this study are that it is necessary to promote teacher education in technologyand to reserve resources for technology education in schools, thereby supportingteachers in controlling contextual and internal factors that affect their teaching. Thissupport to teachers is especially important if there is an intention for the subject to developin new directions.

In the field of technology education differences between girls and boys have been researched for some time but there is still a lack of knowledge about what exactly these differences consist of, and why they exist. The aim of this study is to explore tool use and self-image of girls aged 9 to12 when engaging in technology education. Data was collected over a course of two weeks, involving one Swedish compulsory school and three different classes with pupils aged 9 to 12. The data collection method used for this explorative study was unstructured observations made in-class during fourteen hours of teaching. Social identity theory is used as a theoretical framework to gain knowledge and clues as to why girls lose their interest in technology (education) as they get older. The results of the classroom observations revealed that, although the girls were not aware of it, they still confirmed gender stereotypes about girls and technology by e.g. adopting a social identity as not being technical. This study thus largely confirms the prevailing descriptions in previous research on girls and technology education.

Although history is full of inventors and innovations, principles underpinning the design (or innovation) process were only first described in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Beckman and Barry (2007) connect the design process to learning by experience, a process linked to experiential learning, and a forerunner of authentic learning. This study concerns an authentic innovation project, in which 13 groups of upper secondary school students (aged 16–17 years) solved real-world problems of their choice. The five-week innovation project offered students possibilities to think, design, discuss and reflect. The specific aim of this study is to present and analyse the activities that took place at different stages of the innovation/design process by posing the following research question: Do the students taking part in the innovation project engage one or more phases of the design process? Our results suggest that students with little or no previous experience of innovating or designing, not only solve the tasks they set out to solve, but also do so in a manner that mimics the way a trained inventor might work. These observations are closely associated with the learning models described by Beckman and Barry, and have implications for the teaching of design and innovation processes.

Syftet med detta kapitel är att beskriva några svenska lärare och lärarstudenters uppfattningar om tekniska system som en del av en teknisk allmänbildning, i synnerhet när det handlar om avgränsning av tekniska system. Utifrån dessa uppfattningar diskuterar vi också utmaningar och möjligheter kring undervisning om tekniska system. Vi har genom två studier av yrkesverksamma och blivande tekniklärare visat att de ser en utmaning med att identifiera tekniska system bland olika former av tekniska lösningar. Detta ses tydligast när lärarna och lärarstudenterna försökte identifiera gränserna mellan artefakt och system, respektive mellan systemet och dess omgivning. En viktig del i att övervinna denna utmaning är att använda sig av relevanta systemmodeller som kan beskriva de mest centrala aspekterna av tekniska system och därmed möjliggöra jämförelse mellan system i teknikundervisningen. Just jämförelsen av tekniska system blir särskilt viktig när systemhorisonten beaktas, eftersom gränsen för när en teknisk lösning blir så komplex att den måste beskrivas som ett system kan se så olika ut.

Forskningsfältet teknikens didaktik är ungt i Sverige, men även internationellt går det bara tillbaka några årtionden. Syftet med detta kapitel är att beskriva de teman som finns i den svenska teknikdidaktiska forskningen. En tematisk analys användes för att beskriva hela den svenska forskningen – 93 studier publicerade från 1984 till juni 2017 – utifrån Hagbergs och Hulténs (2005) version av de didaktiska frågorna vad, hur och varför. Den svenska forskningen domineras av vad- och varför-frågorna, alltså innehållsliga och kontextuella aspekter av teknikundervisning, exempelvis om tekniska system, yrkesutbildning, bedömning men också attityder och genus. Forskning kring hur-frågan, alltså konkret undervisning och lärande, är i jämförelse betydligt mindre omfattande men med en viss ökning på senare år, vilket därmed liknar trenden i den internationella forskningen. Forskning kring undervisning och lärande i teknik behöver öka i omfattning för att forskningen ska kunna säga något om ämnets utövande i praktiken och därmed fortsätta vara relevant i framtiden.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the relationship between technology education and educational sloyd (slöjd) in Sweden from the early 1960s until today. It is concluded that the technology subject domain during this period has modernized and become broader and broader, including a systems component. Educational sloyd, on the other hand, partly contains modern, technology-related components but also partly remains a subject emphasizing knowledge and skills rooted in a rural society including elements such as manual handicraft, tool management, aesthetic skills, as well as personal development. The most notable difference between the two subjects lies in their philosophical foundations. Technology education is about various aspects of the human-made world. Its main interest is technology itself; what it is, how it evolves, and how we as humans conceive, design, use, and manage technology. Educational sloyd, on the other hand, is mainly about human development, human capabilities of creating, crafting, working, and developing. However, the curriculum overlap between the two subjects is strikingly similar, and a major part of sloyd can therefore also be seen as a part of the field of technology education today.

The aim of this study is to review international published scientific literature on the subject of girls’ engagement in technology education, in order to: (a) identify what is the most common descriptions of the relationship between girls and technology, (b) identify how girls’ engagement in technology education is described, and (c) identify the type of technology concerned. After systematically searching a bibliographic database, 21 articles were located and included in the study. For each article, we have analysed the purpose of the study, the content of the research done, the research method used, and the sample characteristics and the results observed. The results of the literature review are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and can be used as guidance for educators and researchers in the area. This could lead to further questions, such as if a negative discourse around girls’ relationship with technology may assist or hinder girls’ engagement in technology and technology education

Technology education is a new school subject in comparison with other subjects within the Swedish compulsory school system. Research in technology education shows that technology teachers lack experience of and support for assessment in comparison with the long-term experiences that other teachers use in their subjects. This becomes especially apparent when technology teachers assess students’ knowledge in and about technological systems. This study thematically analysed the assessment views of eleven technology teachers in a Swedish context. Through the use of in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews, their elaborated thoughts on assessing knowledge about technological systems within the technology subject (for ages 13–16) were analysed. The aim was to describe the teachers’ assessment views in terms of types of knowledge, and essential knowledge in relation to a progression from basic to advanced understanding of technological systems. The results showed three main themes that the interviewed teachers said they consider when performing their assessment of technological systems; understanding (a) a system’s structure, (b) its relations outside the system boundary and (c) its historical context and technological change. Each theme included several underlying items that the teachers said they use in a progressive manner when they assess their students’ basic, intermediate and advanced level of understanding technological systems. In conclusion, the results suggest that the analysed themes can provide a basis for further discussion about defining a progression for assessing students’ understanding about technological systems. However, the findings also need to be examined critically as the interviewed teachers’ views on required assessment levels showed an imbalance; few students were said to reach beyond the basic level, but at the same time most assessment items lay on the intermediate and advanced levels.

En stor andel svenska barn mellan sex och nio år gamla går efter skolan till ”fritids”. Fritidshem kännetecknas av både utbildning och omsorg, och därmed av både formella och informella aktiviteter. På senare år har verksamheten blivit mer och mer influerad av skolan och numera finns ett eget kapitel för fritidshem i den nationella läroplanen för grundskolan. Fritidshemmen genomgår därför en förändring som kommer att medföra att mer formella aktiviteter införs, exempelvis inom teknik, samtidigt som praktiskt taget ingen forskning har gjorts på detta. Syftet med det här kapitlet är att presentera några resultat från en pågående forskningsstudie om teknikens roll i aktiviteter på fritidshem. Observationerna fokuserade på de dagliga aktiviteterna på fritidshemmen där teknik hade en central roll. Vi använder begreppet gränsobjekt för att analysera teknik i aktiviteterna. Resultaten visar att det är en speciell sorts teknikundervisning som uppstår i fritidshem, på gränsen mellan den informella och formella verksamheten: från det informella lekrelaterade byggandet med Lego och träklotsar till den mer formella datorundervisningen. I dessa aktiviteter finns ett tydligt fritidsinslag, framför allt i form av ett fritt val av teknik och vad man vill lära sig. Det faktum att barn kan välja fritt pekar inte bara på att teknik i fritidshem är ett gränsobjekt med en stor tolkningsflexibilitet, utan också att teknikundervisning i fritidshem skulle kunna vara en lustfylld och effektiv väg till teknisk allmänbildning.