What is Technology? Investigating Student Conceptions about the Nature of Technology

Abstract

The science education literature clearly shows that knowledge of the nature of technology is an educational goal; however there is a lack of research on student conceptions about the nature of technology. To address this gap in the literature, this research began with a thorough review of the literature on scientific and technological literacy, the philosophy of technology, and the history of technology to develop a conceptual framework for the nature of technology. This review of the literature led to the identification of five dimensions of knowledge that completely characterise the nature of technology. Then, the conceptual framework was used to analyse data collected from an exploratory survey distributed to a small group of middle school students. All of the student responses were able to be coded using the conceptual framework; however, the results suggest that the students sampled possess some naïve understandings of the nature of technology.