Engineering design–based learning has received increasing attention in STEM education as a pedagogical approach that connects disciplinary knowledge with authentic problem solving and iterative design processes. The present study investigated how participation in engineering design–based STEM activities influenced gifted elementary students’ attitudes toward STEM learning, interest in STEM-related careers, perceptions of engineering, conceptual associations related to STEM and design-based thinking, and learning experiences. An embedded mixed-methods design was employed, in which quantitative data were complemented by qualitative evidence to provide a comprehensive understanding of students’ experiences. Participants were 24 gifted third- and fourth-grade students enrolled in a Science and Art Center in Turkiye. Quantitative data were collected using the STEM Attitude Scale for Elementary Students and the STEM Career Interest Survey, administered as pretests and posttests. Qualitative data were obtained through the Draw an Engineer Test, a Word Association Test, semi-structured interviews, and the researcher's observation notes. Quantitative findings indicated significant improvements in students’ attitudes toward STEM learning and their interest in STEM-related careers. Qualitative findings revealed changes in students’ perceptions of engineering, shifting from predominantly construction-oriented representations to more diverse, technology-rich conceptions. In addition, students demonstrated more diversified conceptual associations related to STEM and design-based thinking and increasingly linked these concepts with authentic experiences encountered during the intervention. Interview and observation data highlighted the importance of engagement, creativity, collaboration, and ownership of learning in students’ experiences. Overall, the findings suggest that engineering design–based STEM environments may provide meaningful learning experiences that support gifted students’ engagement with STEM and the development of their interests and aspirations.
Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is being increasingly applied in the field of design, transforming traditional design processes. However, the profound impact of GenAI on designers’ creative inspiration mechanisms and cognitive processes has yet to be fully explored. This study aims to investigate how AI alters designers’ creative association pathways when acting as a trigger, and whether new patterns of cognitive division of labour emerge in human-machine collaboration. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 40 students to investigate factors influencing inspiration in designers triggered by GenAI (Midjourney) during the design process. The data were analysed using manual coding and thematic analysis to identify key themes. The results show that AI significantly shortens the ‘problem ambiguity stage’ in the problem definition stage by providing diverse information, triggering paradigm shifts in the ideation stage through unexpected outputs and transforming designers from ‘information providers’ to ‘idea collaborators’ and then ‘strategic partners’ in the evaluation stage. This forms an efficient iterative cycle of ‘ideation – evaluation – re-ideation’. The study found that, while participants acknowledged the efficiency improvements offered by AI, they still expressed concerns about creativity anxiety and skill degradation. This reflects the complexity of role division and trust-building in human-machine collaboration, emphasising the importance of balancing AI roles. This study also provides new insights into design cognition and human-machine interaction research.
This study evaluates a structured Four-Stage Keyword-based Instructional Model which includes Textual Deconstruction, Semantic Mapping, Strategic Recombination and Visual Synthesis to address design fixation caused by over-reliance on visual inspiration. In a quasi-experimental set-up conducted with 65 Chinese undergraduate students, their efficacy of textual cues was compared to the different types of visual stimuli in packaging design. The Mann-Whitney U tests reveals that the textual group significantly outperformed the visual group across all dimensions, with the most substantial impact for creativity in terms of Flexibility (r = .74). The Spearman correlations show that students’ Deconstruction-Characteristics was a primary cognitive predictor of high creative output (rs ≈ 0.80), indicating that the process of distilling abstract attributes is essential for generating original design. Findings also indicate cultural literacy as a critical mediator, where students that utilized thematic familiarity to bridge abstract text and visual form were found to have reduced cognitive load during semantic processing. These results demonstrate that prioritizing textual ideation over immediate visual reference enables students to engage in their concepts with more depth and also mitigates the tendency for replication. This research advocates for a pedagogical shift toward a logic-driven, text-first scaffold to maximize creative potential in design education.
This article presents a research and experimental study on the neuroscience of the design process, focusing on the role of problem characteristics in shaping cognitive responses. Conducted with a group of 22 architecture students, the study aimed to investigate the cognitive and neural effects of problem definition on designers, addressing the central research question: “Do well-defined and ill-defined problems in the design process lead to differences in neural activity?” Using electroencephalography (EEG) as the main method, the research examined variations in brain activity and cognitive load during the problem-solving process. The findings revealed that well-defined and ill-defined problems imposed distinct cognitive demands, which translated into observable differences in neural activation, particularly in relation to affected brain regions and specific brainwave patterns. Beyond presenting the applied methodology and experimental procedure, the article situates the findings at the intersection of neuroscience and architecture, highlighting the broader potential of neuroscientific approaches for advancing architectural design research, developing innovative design methods, and enriching educational practices in architecture schools.
This study is the result of international research collaboration aimed at identifying current and future trends and issues in technology education in Belgium (Flanders), Finland, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States by replicating Wicklein's (1993) study. First, in 2019–2020, information was collected from technology education stakeholders in all participating countries using a three-round Delphi method. Although the number of participants and data processing procedures varied slightly in individual studies, this study was able to summarise the five most important positive and negative trends and issues reported in technology education in the participating countries. One of the five most important positive and negative trends related to the technology education curriculum and its position in the curriculum, as well as the content of technology education. One of the five most important positive trends and issues was related to the emphasis on hands-on and/or problem-solving approaches in technology and engineering education. In addition, all studies clearly identified the need for a comprehensive approach to ensure professional development opportunities and provide adequate resources for technology education.
By exploring the pedagogical practices of early childhood education (ECE), this study examined how craft, design, and technology (CDT) education is implemented for young children in Finland. The findings suggested that versatile CDT activities play a moderate role in Finnish ECE. Our research surveyed 279 ECE professionals across Finland to study their pedagogical approaches in CDT education for children aged 1–7. Additionally, this study assessed how children’s age groups are related to these practices. CDT education is integrated into the Finnish ECE and preschool core curricula to foster cognitive, motor, social, aesthetic, and technological skills. However, its practical implementation remains limited, with educators reporting insufficient resources and varying practices. Exploratory factor analysis identified four pedagogical dimensions in CDT education: long-term and integrated craft projects, collaborative craft activities, independent craft activities, and model- and experiment-based crafting in short sessions. ANOVA revealed that preschool children were offered more opportunities to participate in CDT activities than younger children. Collaborative and long-term projects were considered less suitable for toddlers and were only partially implemented for children aged 3–5. Individually approached design practices and model-based sessions were the most implemented practices for CDT education. This study revealed the importance of pedagogies that promote transversal learning to better integrate CDT education into ECE. Age-appropriate activities engage even the youngest children in designing, making, and exploring hands-on technologies. Aligning CDT education with play-based, multidisciplinary practices can enhance developmental outcomes for children of all ages.
This article examines how the design/craft divide is reproduced in design education, even in pedagogical settings intended to challenge it. The study investigates how undergraduate students of industrial design, communication design, and architecture in Istanbul engage with, perceive, and position women’s needlecraft practices, specifically knitting and sewing, through two workshops facilitated by craftswomen without formal design training. Drawing on ethnographic observations, focus group interviews, and participant drawings, the findings reveal that while the workshops purposefully inverted hierarchies by positioning craftswomen as instructors and students as learners, participants ultimately reconstructed the design/craft divide. Participants framed design as original, conceptual, and supervisory, and women’s needlecraft as manual, repetitive, decorative, and amateur. The article argues for a critical rethinking of design pedagogy that recognizes making as a form of knowledge production and values the epistemic contributions of ordinary craft.
Educational robotics kits (ERKs) are increasingly adopted in technology education to promote hands-on learning and problem-solving skills. However, the extent to which their design intentionally supports the development of students’ technological literacy remains insufficiently examined. This research investigates how deliberately current ERKs are designed to foster technological literacy, identifying design gaps in alignment with curriculum-based competencies. Adopting a holistic multiple case study methodology under a constructivist epistemology, the research analyses 30 representative commercial ERK products using publicly accessible documentary sources, such as product websites, manuals, and instructional guides. The analytical framework is grounded in five core competencies and seventeen primary indicators derived from China’s General Technology curriculum. Qualitative coding methods were applied to evaluate the alignment between ERK design and curricular objectives, and a Sankey diagram was used to visualise the distribution and frequency of aligned competencies. The findings indicate that while many ERKs offer broad coverage of competencies, this coverage often lacks intentionality. The research introduces the concept of design evenness to describe such superficial comprehensiveness, which may obscure the absence of focused pedagogical intent. It contributes a competency-linked analytical lens for evaluating ERK design and provides practical implications for developers, educators, and policymakers. For developers, the findings highlight areas for product refinement. For educators, they offer strategies for selecting ERKs that support curriculum goals. For policymakers, they provide a basis for aligning ERK offerings with education standards. The research advances understanding of how educational tools can be more effectively designed to support technological literacy in formal education contexts.
Architectural education encompasses a continually evolving process, where new insights emerge within the design studio that may not always align with what is written. Therefore, the approach to teaching architecture can vary from one studio to another and may extend beyond the formal curriculum through the involvement of various design actors. This article aims to identify and reveal the hidden aspects of design learning by exploring the hidden curriculum from the perspectives of the institution, instructor, and student through a three-stage case study. In this context, a nine-dimensional framework was developed, and the concept of the hidden curriculum was questioned through this framework. The findings indicate that the dimensions within this framework are integrated into design learning, both implicitly and explicitly, to varying extents. As a result, this study argues that a more inclusive, liberating, and ethically conscious approach in architectural education can be developed by acknowledging the hidden curriculum, establishing its framework, and encouraging its use as a pedagogical tool.
This study explores how students’ creativity emerges from their engagement in the Design Thinking (DT) process as part of an I-STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) learning sequence. A group of thirty twelfth-grade students (aged 16–18) from a secondary school participated in the study, collaborating to design and construct a prototype for monitoring indoor air quality. Data collection included observations, student prototypes, written records, photographs, and video recordings, which were analyzed to map students’ progression through the DT process and to assess the emergence of Cognitive (Divergent and Convergent Thinking) and Functional (Relevance and Effectiveness, Novelty, Elegance, Resilience) creativity. The findings demonstratedthat students engaged with the DT process in a dynamic and iterative manner, frequently revisiting previous phases to refine their ideas and improve their prototypes. Divergent thinking was most evident during brainstorming, while convergent thinking emerged during design evaluation and improvement. Functional creativity was particularly visible during the construction and evaluation phases, with teams producing solutions that demonstrated novelty, usefulness, and adaptation to context and challenges. The complexity of a team’s iterative process was a strong predictor of their creative success, with non-linear pathways leading to greater resilience and more innovative solutions. Overall, this study contributes to understanding the dynamic interplay between the iterative DT process and the development of cognitive and functional creativity in I-STEM education, offering practical implications for educators seeking to enhance students’ problem-solving skills and creative potential.
Technology education varies significantly across national jurisdictions, reflecting diverse philosophical and historical trajectories. This study presents a comparative analysis of the intended technology curricula for lower secondary education in Ireland and Sweden. Using the three part heuristic framework for technology education, the research examines the distribution of learning outcomes across three categories which consist of technical skills, technological scientific knowledge, and socio ethical technical understanding. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on the subject specifications for the four Irish technology subjects, Applied Technology, Engineering, Graphics, and Wood Technology, alongside the single Swedish Technology subject. The findings reveal a marked divergence in pedagogical priorities between the two nations. Irish curricula are characterised by a high concentration of technical skills, particularly in Engineering and Graphics, where socio ethical considerations are notably minimal or absent. In contrast, the Swedish curriculum places a significantly higher emphasis on socio ethical understanding and the societal impact of technology, reflecting a more balanced epistemological profile. These results suggest a technical dominance within the Irish suite that potentially limits the development of holistic technological literacy. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for the ongoing redevelopment of the Irish Senior Cycle. It advocates for a more balanced integration of ethical and critical perspectives to ensure that students are prepared for the complexities of a contemporary technological society.
Technology teachers often work under ambiguous institutional conditions, lacking subject-specific training and access to stable professional communities. While teacher identity has been widely studied as a factor in professional development and instructional agency, less attention has been paid to how technology teachers construct and shift identity positions over time and across contexts. This study explores the professional identity of Swedish compulsory school technology teachers using a qualitative design that combines narrative analysis on an individual level with identity profiling. The analysis is guided by a three-part conceptual model that frames identity as an evolving construct shaped by reflective narration, discursive positioning, and contextual adaptation, linking reflection, identity positioning, and professional trajectories as interrelated dimensions of teachers’ identity work. Based on interviews with ten teachers, four identity profiles were identified: the Evolving Practitioner, the Structured Planner, the Resourceful Improvisor, and the Struggling Defender. These profiles illustrate how teachers navigate subject status, material constraints, institutional expectations, and pedagogical agency, and how these factors are shaped and re-shaped across careers. Several teachers exhibit hybrid or transitional identities, highlighting the relational and dynamic nature of identity development. Findings suggest that identity-sensitive professional development must consider contextual variation and support teachers’ reflective agency, implying that uniform professional development models risk overlooking how teachers learn, adapt, and grow across career stages. By revealing patterned identity profiles and their associated conditions, this research provides actionable insights for designing professional development, policy, and future research in technology education and related STEM fields.
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools into educational settings is reshaping how students learn, create, and engage with digital technologies, particularly in fields such as technology and design education where virtual simulations and AI-assisted workflows are increasingly prevalent. Despite this momentum, student adoption of AI tools remains inconsistent, especially in developing regions where technological readiness and trust in emerging technologies vary widely. This study investigates factors influencing AI tool acceptance among 493 industrial technology students from a public university in Central Visayas, Philippines. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), the research examined the relationships among perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived risk, and behavioral intention to adopt AI-driven virtual simulation applications. Findings confirm that perceived usefulness and ease of use remain strong drivers of adoption intention, aligning with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). However, perceived risk demonstrated a significant negative influence on both perceptions and intentions, highlighting the impact of concerns related to data privacy, algorithmic transparency, and ethical implications of AI in design-oriented learning environments. Integrating perceived risk into TAM expands the explanatory power of the model in technical drafting and design education, offering a more comprehensive picture of how students evaluate and adopt AI-driven virtual simulation apps. This enriched perspective highlights the necessity for institutional strategies that build AI literacy, reinforce data governance mechanisms, and foster responsible engagement with emerging technologies. The results provide valuable insights for educators, curriculum designers, and policymakers working to advance AI-supported learning, particularly within resource-constrained and rapidly developing educational contexts.
This paper explores how technology teachers in compulsory schools actively legitimise technology education within settings characterised by unequal resources and shifting policy expectations. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the study examines how teachers utilise and transform different forms of capital to sustain meaningful and recognisable technology education. Two research questions guide the analysis: how teachers manage competing demands on the subject, and what strategies they employ to preserve professional agency and legitimacy. The research is based on ten semi-structured interviews with certified technology teachers and employs directed content analysis informed by the concepts of economic, cultural, social, and symbolic capital. The findings reveal that teachers continually legitimise their practice by converting material resources into authenticity, external networks into curriculum-aligned knowledge, credentials and didactic artefacts into professional recognition, student voices into symbolic authority, and organisational time into a teachable culture. These processes help teachers stabilise subject practices, enhance pedagogical ambitions, and make technology education visible and meaningful to students, colleagues, and school leaders. Policy implications and proposals for further scholarly work are also discussed.
Design thinking has emerged as an effective methodology to enhance critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving. Nevertheless, incorporating design thinking (DT) into the curriculum can be challenging, and more illustrative examples are needed. This study examines a DT intervention in an online course, including a 30-minute learning module and recurring self-assessments over four semesters, encompassing 156 students. The findings indicate that the intervention significantly improved students’ DT competencies, especially in “Empathy.” Clear distinctions are observed between the high and low DT groups, particularly in their ability to use DT skills across different contexts. Limitations and possible implications were also discussed.
Design and technology (D T) education has occupied a distinctive yet persistently contested position within general education since its formal inclusion as a foundation subject in the national curriculum for England in 1988. Despite repeated reforms, longstanding difficulties concerning assessment, curriculum coherence, teacher supply, and subject status have proven remarkably resilient. This article offers a historical-conceptual analysis of the emergence and evolution of D T in England, situated within a selective international perspective. It argues that these enduring challenges are best understood not as outcomes of policy failure or poor implementation, but as structural consequences of D T’s formation as a hybrid curriculum, combining partially reconciled traditions of craft, design, and technological knowledge. Drawing on curriculum theory and international scholarship, the analysis traces how attempts to stabilise this hybrid subject have resulted in recurring cycles of epistemic expansion and contraction. To move beyond nationally specific accounts, the article proposes a typology of technology, engineering, and/or design (TED) education, conceptualising international variation as alternative curriculum settlements within a shared problem space. The typology provides a comparative framework for analysing how different systems anchor epistemic authority, define educational purpose, and organise assessment. The article concludes by considering the implications of recognising D T as an inherently tensioned hybrid curriculum for future research, policy, and curriculum design.
The shift from human-centric to more-than-human-centric is gaining attention across disciplines. Against the backdrop of the environmental crisis in general and biodiversity loss in particular, meaningful steps can be achieved through this paradigm shift. However, both outgrowing from long-held paradigms and growing into new worldviews takes time, even when the ever-accelerating environmental crisis requires urgent action. Interdisciplinary collaborations in education may help accelerate this shift. In this paper, we present a collaboration between Department of ICT and Natural Sciences, Immersive Technologies (NTNU) and Department of Design (Aalto University) as a case of how more-than-human perspectives can be incorporated into technology education within an existing curriculum. The aims of this paper are threefold. First, to highlight the importance of embedding more-than-human perspectives in technology education to challenge the prevailing human-centric focus in human-computer interaction. Second, based on current literature and the presented collaboration, to provide a methodological framework of how more-than-human perspectives can be embedded into technology education through three dimensions: cross-disciplinary collaborations, integration of values, knowledges and ethics based on reciprocity, and expansion of perspectives through immersion into renewed collaborations. Third, by presenting the case, to critically reflect on the practical implications of embedding more-than-human perspectives into technology education curricula.
As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform society, growing attention is being paid to how its own development and deployment impact the environment. This study investigated how graduate engineering researchers perceive and integrate environmental sustainability into their work. Using a mixed-methods survey of 64 graduate students at a large US research university, we explored three areas for AI sustainability: students’ perceptions of AI sustainability, the factors they consider in AI design, and how they assess the environmental impacts of their research. Our findings revealed that while students largely viewed environmental sustainability as important, the majority did not evaluate the environmental effects of their work. This gap potentially stemmed from a mix of irrelevance, lack of knowledge, and limited institutional incentives. Most students prioritized performance and research goals over environmental considerations. However, many expressed interests in learning how to integrate sustainability more effectively into their practice.
Design is considered one of the most critical tasks for architects. Architecture design studios introduce undergraduate students to the architectural profession by immersing them in the design process, enabling them to apply theoretical knowledge whilst supporting cognitive processes involved in architectural design and reflective design reasoning. This study presents a structured narrative review based on systematic database search of the literature on design teaching approaches in architecture design studios. The review focuses on analysing pedagogical methods and studio outcomes, drawing from papers published between 1980 and June 2024. From these, 72 publications were selected based on their focus on experiments or reviews encompassing all stages of the design process. The findings categorise the reviewed research into five key methodologies: Reflective Design Studio, Collaborative Design Studio (including collaborations with peer institutions), Computer-Aided Design Studio, Interdisciplinary Design Studio, and Online Design Studio, as well as their hybrid variants. All types of studios incorporate a comprehensive design process and emphasise specific pedagogical approaches, ranging from self-reflection and peer collaboration to the integration of digital tools and interdisciplinary involvement. While the identified methodologies reflect current ADS trends, challenges still remain in assessing the effectiveness and efficacy of different pedagogical approaches and adapting to the fast-growing technological advancements. The study contributes an integrated historical-pedagogical typology of undergraduate architecture design studios and identifies gaps in evidence related to learning outcomes and evaluation practices. Future research should focus on developing flexible learning experiences and robust evaluation frameworks, along with an investigation of the impact of technology, promoting equity and inclusion, and fostering interdisciplinary collaborations to create a more adaptable and inclusive architecture education.
