TD&T23 Where do I find D&T research?

Its not always easy to find current and relevant research about design and technology education. This week I introduce 4 D&T education journals.

Transcript.doc

Mentioned in this episode:

Design and Technology Education: An International Journal (https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/DATE/index)

VAN DOOREN, Elise et al. Making the design process in design education explicit: two exploratory case studies. Design and Technology Education: an International Journal, [S.l.], v. 25, n. 1, p. 13-34, feb. 2020. ISSN 1360-1431. Available at: <https://ojs.lboro.ac.uk/DATE/article/view/2657>.

International Journal of Technology and Design Education (www.springer.com/education+&+language/learning+&+instruction/journal/10798)

78 open access papers

Güdel, K., Heitzmann, A. & Müller, A. Self-efficacy and (vocational) interest in technology and design: an empirical study in seventh and eighth-grade classrooms. Int J Technol Des Educ29, 1053–1081 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-018-9475-y

Journal of Technology Education (scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JTE/)

Volk, K. 2019. The Demise of Traditional Technology and Engineering Education Teacher Preparation Programs and a New Direction for the Profession https://doi.org/10.21061/jte.v31i1.a.1 

Australasian Journal of Technology Education (www.ajte.org/index.php/AJTE/index)

Gorman, D., Hoermann,S., Lindeman, R.W. and Shahri B. 2020 Challenges in food-based education: Exploring the potential of solutions using virtual reality technology http://dx.doi.org/10.15663/ajte.v0i0.68

Old journals of interest:

Studies in Design Education Craft & Technology

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Transcript

Ep023 Where can I read about D&T research?

Alison Hardy  

Whether you're like me, and you enjoy reading, and you have quite a number of different books or different articles on the go or different things you're listening to, to keep yourself up to date or just help your mind switch off. But I know I like to have a number of different things on the go that I can dip into and dip out of. I'm a big fiction reader. And I read all sorts of stuff, some that's just easily mundane and brain numbing, that just allows me to switch off some that challenges me a little bit more and sometimes out of several books on the go at the same time. But I also like to read around about design and technology, education, obviously, that's part of my main job at the university in terms of doing my research. And I also like to keep up to date with what other people are doing in design and technology, education, research and thinking about how that's informing me and what I'm doing. But also, I use it when I'm doing my teacher training and talking to them about what's happening and what's the new knowledge and new ideas coming out about the subject and when the student teacher starts with At Nottingham Trent, they don't always know where to look. And they don't always know how to access some of these journal articles that are out there. So in this episode, I thought I'd share some information about four different journals that are primarily focused on Design and Technology Education, talked a little bit about what they're about, pick out one or two articles, maybe from each of them. I'm not going to go into any great detail, but hopefully it might open up some ideas of where you might go looking for reading and reading that's free. In the most case, one of them does have a subscription. So you can only get access to some of it, and for free, but three of them are open access, and there's a whole load of stuff out there. But I think whether you're involved in teaching in a classroom with children design and technology education, or you're interested in design and technology education or involved in research in the field, I think there is something in all four of these journals for you. Now I've got this list in part from my own experience. Sort of time looking out there about Design and Technology Research. But also, in the fourth edition of the learning to teach design and technology book, which I may have mentioned in previous episodes. There is a new chapter, which is chapter 20, written by Professor Stephanie Atkinson from the University of Sunderland in the northeast of England, about using and creating research, because we're really keen on getting people coming into the profession, thinking about and engaging with research that is being done about design or technology. So these four journals are actually listed in that chapter. So Steph has done a little bit of the legwork for me and making it easy for me to do the prep for this week's podcast. So thank you to Stephanie. And hopefully those of you who are going to pick up the book we'll be able to find out a little bit more about Stephanie's views and Stephanie's suggestions about how you might use these journals. So I said there's four that I'm going to talk about. I'm going to start with the journal design and technology and data technology, education and international journal. Now, this journal sort of sits alongside it's done a Technology Association in the UK. It's currently edited by case stables. It was formally edited by Eddie Norman, who featured on the podcast last week. And the articles within this journal are primarily about primary, secondary and higher education, sectors of Design and Technology Education. But there is more and more coming into that journal that relates to design education that is involved in higher education that doesn't necessarily lead into schools, but leads into the profession of design. It's all open access. So you don't have to pay for any of this. And if you go on to the website, and I'll put the links to all of these websites in the show notes, you can see the current additions and you can explore through archive additions as well. And you can actually go back and look historically at previous journals. So it's a predecessor to the design the technology education An international journal, which I did as part of my PhD, I went back and looked in the older versions that are around craft studies. 

Alison Hardy  

So I've just picked out one journal from the most recent edition that came out earlier this year in 2020. And it's written by it's co authored by five different authors. And that's that's quite common that there's a number of different authors involved in one paper. All of these authors bar one are from the Netherlands. One is from Finland. I'm not gonna embarrass myself by attempting to pronounce their names. And the title of the journal throw the article is making the design process in design education explicit to exploratory case studies, and that kind of caught my eye thought. Me and Eddie have been talking about design process and I'm a little bit sceptical and I see the words that before the design process because I'm not convinced there is one. I haven't read the article. But I've just picked it out as an article that I thought when I looked at the title, I thought that could have something in there, for me working in the field. But also if you're a teacher, you might find that quite interesting to read about these two different case studies about how they're trying to make explicit a process of designing, let's let's, let's put it that way, I'm kind of hedging my bets about what the paper is about. I'm going to come back in a few weeks time and over the next couple of months, sort of touching into some of these journals a little bit more detail because I think there's articles here which I'd really like to share some of the claims and the arguments from to give you some food for thoughts that you might take into your practice, in whatever you're doing and design the technology education. So that's the first one, the Design and Technology Education An International Journal. The second one is the Australasian Journal of technology education so you can understand where this one sets and it's currently from its title. It's obviously based in the southern hemisphere, and it's a relatively new journal 2012 I think is when it was started. And it's currently edited by Wendy Fox Turnbull, who's based in New Zealand. And the journal article that I've picked out, again, is from the most current edition 2020. And it's got four authors, but like the other one, multiple authors, and this one I picked out because it's unusual in terms of its topic. It's about food based education. Now, I think it is quite unusual to find articles about food education. So that's why I've picked out this one. And when I skim through the abstract, now, an abstract is basically like a summary, if it's written well, of the paper. So it gives you a quick overview of what the paper is going to be about and starts to hopefully give you some ideas about whether it's relevant to you. Some are written better if I'm honest than others. But that's what that's what if you're engaging with these for the first time we look at this thing and where do I start? read the abstract. You don't have to read the whole paper. Just read the abstracts and think Hmm, this sounds Interesting. We'll talk later on about them what you could do and how you engage with these papers. But I've read the abstract of this one. It's about food based education. It's picked out I think some themes that I've heard from from other countries about issues around food based education, is talking about issues in New Zealand, but I think he's got some ideas there for people beyond New Zealand, and it talks about potential solutions to these problems around virtual reality technology and gaming, and the flipped classroom. Now I've got some scepticism about flip classroom. And that's my own personal perspectives that would make me interested in that and thinking, is this person going to persuade me otherwise about the value of flipped classrooms? I'm quite serious about virtual reality technology. I'm interested as an emerging technology, but I'm also intrigued about thinking about how we might develop our pedagogy. So that might give me a reason to go back and look at this paper. I'm also just trying to share with you here about how I look at things and pick out papers that I think might go back and have a look at that or That's interesting or relevant to me or what I'm doing. The third journal that I want to talk about is based in America, and it's called the Journal of technology, education gain, open access, it's been going quite a long time. The articles in here do tend to be very American centric. And that's not a criticism that's just giving you a heads up a bit like the Australasian one sometimes are very centralised, and the authors tend to come from that region of the globe. Their Design and Technology eveness it's an international journal can tend to be quite UK centric, but I know it's opened up to design education. It's broader sense that the authors have come from a much more international and giving perspectives from all over the world. The Journal of Technology Education, as I said, is an American Journal, although there are articles in there from different parts of the world, but I like to read some of these international journals that give a different perspective to In my UK centric little world, about what's happening in technology education elsewhere. And the article that I've picked out here, again, I've been at front, I've not read this, I was looked at the abstract and thought, well, that's got something I might come back to is written by Kenneth Volk.

Alison Hardy  

It's got a long title. But basically, in summary, it's talking about why has there been a demise of initial teacher education programmes for design and technology, education, and what is a new direction for this? So I think for those of you who are involved in initial teacher education here, or struggling to find teachers to come and work in your schools, this might give you an interesting sight to realise that this is not just a problem for your country where you are. It's quite a problem at the moment I know in the UK, but also give you some insight as to how can I focus suggesting how it might be addressed in America might have some different ideas for where you are based. So that's the Journal of technology education again, open access, and you can have a look at those links will be in the show notes. The fourth article is the International Journal of technology and design education. And that is edited by Mark to freeze. This one is really is very international and the range of authors and the papers that are published here are very broad in terms of the different nations that are represented. And again, I think that's that's really fascinating to look at. Now, Springer, em, who's the publishing house for this journal and have made that this journal is not open access, you do have to pay a subscription to access the majority of the papers in this journal. However, there are 78 articles which are open access. So what happens is that some journals, even though they're behind a paywall, you have to pay a subscription. They make some of it freely available. Now there's all sorts of different ways they're made freely available. I'm not going to go into all the ins and outs of that, but 78 are available. And I'm picking out one here that has been co authored by three authors. And the lead author is Karin Gudel, who is based in Switzerland. And I went over to Switzerland about 18 months ago and spoke at Karin's University, and we talked about this research she's doing and I think this is a really interesting study. And it gives an insight into young people's interest in technology and design and their self efficacy and that's about their self belief that they can do it. Okay. So I think as a design and technology teacher or somebody in design and technology research, understanding the relationship between young people's interests, their self efficacy, and their vocational interest in technology and design gives us an insight as to why young people engage, disengage, choose, achieve, and so on. And this is a big study that's happening in, in Switzerland, they've got 480 students. So this paper is, is open access, and you can go and have a look at. So those are the four journals. As I said, I'll put the links in the show notes that are available for the design and technology education community to publish their work in or if you're somebody who wants to read it and think about how it might help you think differently about your context. I think these are a really good place to start. Now, this Springer journal, the International Journal, if the papers are behind the paywall, you can do a number of things because sometimes the authors have made pre print versions available via websites such as researchgate. And so it's not the finished article. There may well be errors within it, but you might find their pre-print version available on their private websites, their university websites or a set Researchgate website. So what do you do when you get hold of one of these papers that you found an interest in? Well, I've already said that I would start by reading the abstract and the abstract is mini story, a summary, hopefully, of the paper. I'm saying that with a caveat of should be, because abstracts there's quite a skill to write and abstract somewhere written better than others. But they should give you an overview and they tend to be about 250 to 300 words. So it's really easy to kind of get your head around it.

Alison Hardy  

And I would always start there. And if I'm sometimes I might read a little bit more after the abstract and think well either I don't really understand the abstract, but I know they've got some words in there that I'm interested in. Or I do understand the abstract. And this is telling me that this is a paper that I want to read more of. I've very, very rarely read the whole paper from start to finish. And that is not a disrespect to the author's they've had to do that process. And I'll talk a little bit more maybe in this episode and hopefully in a future episode about what we do with our research, but they had to do all of those different stages. But for you, as the reader wanting to understand and gain from that journal article, how it's going to impact or benefit you, in your design or technology education context, I would start with reading the introduction and the introduction workshop to hopefully give you an overview of where this research that they're presenting sits, you know, what's the context why they think it's useful? Who else has worked in that field, and the introduction should be a couple of paragraphs long. And again, that should give you a quick overview. People tend to cite themselves you can see that they're building upon further studies knit down to the conclusion. And again, okay, so what you're finding what you're finding that's going to make a difference to me in my context, But also what are you finding, there's going to make an impact on other researchers that they might find useful. Because if you're doing, for example, a master study or a research project, this is where you might get some ideas about some key research that might need to be done in design or technology education. But also you might get there. So what's with the big ideas that might be actually useful to impact or question around policy. So I think a good paper for Design and Technology Education, if you are based in a school should be giving you something if this is to the papers aimed at giving you something to take into your classroom or to take into your departments, or to take into yourselves to think about the subject differently. You don't have to agree with the author, don't forget, but it should be giving you some food for thought. And on the other hand, it should be something there that leads into the field of design and technology education in a wider sense that may impact on policy, or in the way we think about the subject. So that's my channel. top tips for getting into these research papers read the abstract. If you like what you read, or you don't understand what you read, read the introduction and the conclusion, excuse me, and then that should give you something a little bit more to go on. And in future episodes, I'm going to pick out a couple of papers, I'll come back to Karen's paper and dissect that a little bit more detail and share a little bit why I think that's a really good paper and why it's it's influencing me and the way I think and how I think it might help you in the classroom, if that's where you are. But I just wanted in this episode to give you an overview of those four journals, where you can find current research that will challenge your thinking, and that you don't have to read the whole article to begin with read the abstract, the introduction, the conclusion. And if you want a little bit more, read the discussion, and if you're feeling even, like want more than read the literature review, and so on, but that's how I'd approach it. And I think as for those of us in the design and technology, education profession, no matter which context we are reading these different types of articles will challenge the way we think and will actually only make what we do even richer and stronger and with a deeper foundation. So those are my thoughts about research and where to find it. If you've got any other places that you want to suggest, you can always contact me. drop me an email, find me on Twitter. I hope you're all keeping well and keeping safe thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai