Tímarit um menntarannsóknir - 01.01.2014, Blaðsíða 56

Brynjar Ólafsson, Gísli Þorsteinsson og Ossi Autio
Abstract
Student's attitude to technology and Design and Craft
education in Icelandic and Finnish schools.
Pedagogical Craft originated in Finland
and Iceland in the end of the 19th cent-
ury. It focused on students copying arti-
facts using a variety of handicraft tools.
The purpose was to develop students in
general and improve manual skills, rat-
her than to make artifacts for daily life.
Today however, the focus is also on the
development of students' ideation, imple-
menting technical solutions to improve
their thinking skills, which enables them
to work through various handicraft pro-
cesses (from initial ideas to final product).
This school work is intended to increase
students' technical literacy and ingenuity
and increase their self-esteem. This paper
is based on a comparative study of 11- and
13-year-old students' attitudes towards
technology and the subject Design and
Craft in Finland and Iceland. A survey was
conducted during the years 2011 and 2012
in class 5 and 7. The aim of the research
was to answer the questions: What are stud-
ents' attitudes towards technology in Finland
and lceland? and What are students' attitudes
towards the subject Design and Craft in Fin-
land and lceland?
Dyrenfurth (1990) and Layton (1994)
referred to attitudes towards technology
education using the concept of 'techno-
logical will'. According to these authors,
technology is determined and guided by
human emotions, motivation, values and
personal qualities. Thus, the develop-
ment of technology is dependent on the
students' will to take part in lessons and
on the impact of their technological dec-
isions. This research gives an indication
of students' attitudes towards technology
and Design and Craft. Because of the small
sample, a larger study would improve the
reliability of the outcome. In addition, the
questionnaire measures only students'
attitudes, not their absolute technological
will. The concept attitude is also just a
single part of a larger concept, technological
competence. Attitude is a crucial part of the
competence as it depends on technological
knowledge and technological skills in real-
life situations. In order to evaluate stud-
ents' attitudes towards craft and techno-
logy in Finland and Iceland, a question-
naire was devised, consisting of 14 ques-
tions. For each question, there were five
options, from 'Strongly Agree' to 'Strongly
Disagree'. The questionnaire also featured
some questions about students' backgro-
unds, in addition to questions that attemp-
ted to gauge students' motivation and
success in terms of craft and technology
education classes. The questionnaire was
based on the PATT standards (Pupils At-
titudes Towards Technology), which were
designed and validated by Raat and de
Vries (1986) and van de Velde (1992). Stud-
ents answering the survey were 233, 104
in Iceland and 129 in Finland. The study
showed differences in students' attitudes
towards technology and Design and Craft
in the two countries. The Icelandic stud-
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