Research on students' perceptions and understanding of technology has shown that students have a narrow view of technology: for example, technology is often manifested in students' descriptions as artefacts or objects. This study investigates the ways in which students' understanding of how technology is manifested expands during a series of…

Hands-on activities promote interest in engineering, but their use in primary education is under pressure due to doubts about their effect on learning. Based on the Challenge Point Framework, we hypothesized that an adaptive approach in which a pupil starts with tasks at its level of prior knowledge would raise the learning results of hands-on…

Primary school children frequently use digital devices, which can be infected by computer viruses. In this mixed methods paper with two studies (N = 278 + 114), we examined 8-year-olds' preconceptions about computer viruses and protection against them; how to teach these children about said topics using three different, 30-min-long,…

This study aimed to develop and validate, based on the Evidence Centered Design approach, a generic tool to diagnose primary education pupils' prior knowledge of technological systems in primary school classrooms. Two technological devices, namely the Buzz Wire device and the Stairs Marble Track, were selected to investigate whether theoretical…

In Sweden, as in many other countries, programming has been added to the curriculum in recent years. This paper explores how and under what conditions programming is transformed into teaching in technology education. Teachers in grade 7-9 were interviewed about what and how they teach about programming in the context of technology education, and…

The Maori Whakatauki (significant saying) for Technology Education: Kaua e rangiruatia te hapai o te hoe; E kore to tatou waka e u ki uta. Don't paddle out of unison; Our canoe will never reach the shore. Quality initial teacher education (ITE) builds on student prior knowledge. Students bring a wealth of life and career knowledge and skills to…