The nature of technology and engineering (NOTE) as perceived by science and technology teachers in Korea

ABSTRACT

Purpose

This study wants to identify how teachers perceive technology and engineering as distinct entities and develop a framework of NOTE.

Design and methods

To develop the NOTE framework, this study conducted interviews with eight secondary school teachers, comprising four technology and four science teachers. To examine how the teachers perceive technology and engineering and distinguish them, transcriptions of the interviews were analyzed using phenomenography.

Results

The results show that all research participants appeared to distinguish technology and engineering in some ways, but with varying degrees. In addition, their perceptions expressed through the interviews were categorized into 11 elements in three domains of the NOTE. The teachers’ perceptions also appeared to be influenced by language. As many Korean words are based on Chinese characters, teachers often understood the terms through the meanings of the Chinese characters. Teachers were confused between the Korean terms and their corresponding English terms because what the terms connote are different in each language.

Conclusion

This study provides useful information concerning NOTE by analyzing how teachers perceive technology and engineering, which could be helpful in teaching STEM based on NOTE.

KEYWORDS:

• STEM
• nature of technology and engineering (NOTE)
• nature of technology (NOT)
• nature of engineering (NOE)
• phenomenography
• teachers’ perception

Consent statement

Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study prior to the interview. The participant has consented to the submission of the case report to the journal.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical approval

Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Seoul National University monitored all procedures, including recruitment of participants, consent form for the participants, data collection, and analysis. This study received IRB approval (No.1904/001-001).

Notes

1. In the 2015 Revised National Curriculum for middle school, science, technology and domestic science, and informatics are grouped, and this group is taught for 680 hours over three years. Normally science gets four hours, technology and domestic science gets two hours, and informatics gets one hour per week.

2. A ‘rolling-ball project’ is a type of project done by technology teachers in technology and domestic science that is well known in Korea. Students design slides on which marbles are rolled using mechanisms such as levers and scientific knowledge such as how the degree of the slide effects the rolling speed of the marble. The marble that rolls the longest generally wins in the competition.

3. Biology is saeng-mul-hak in Korean.

4. Physics is mul-li-hak in Korean.

5. ‘Gwa-hak’ is ‘science’ in Korean.