Naïve Designers’ Information Use during the Design Process in a Low-Resource Classroom

Nicolaas Blom; Grietjie Haupt; William Fraser

doi:10.29333/ejmste/90091

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Nicolaas Blom ¹ ^* , Grietjie Haupt ¹, William Fraser ¹

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¹ Department of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, University of Pretoria, SOUTH AFRICA^* Corresponding Author

Abstract

Facilitating the design process in low-resource Technology classrooms has become increasingly challenging in the 21st century. This research focuses on the types of information sources used during learners’ design processes. We examine the information sources that nine South African Grade 9 learners from a low-resource school used while they were engaged in a mechanical systems and control design task. They worked in groups of three to design a machine to lift logs from the ground onto a truck. We utilised a Think Aloud Protocol Study to collect concurrent verbal, visual and temporal data. The results indicate that Grade 9 design teams were predominantly engaged in problem solving activities by using mostly external sources of information during the early phases of the design process. If designing is the backbone methodology of Technology education, attention should be given to the information sources that learners use during designing.

Keywords

cognitive phases
design cognition
information sources
low-resource classrooms
technology education

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Article Type: Research Article

EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed, 2018, Volume 14, Issue 6, 2563-2586

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/90091

Publication date: 18 Apr 2018

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How to cite this article

APA

Blom, N., Haupt, G., & Fraser, W. (2018). Naïve Designers’ Information Use during the Design Process in a Low-Resource Classroom. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 14(6), 2563-2586. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/90091

Vancouver

Blom N, Haupt G, Fraser W. Naïve Designers’ Information Use during the Design Process in a Low-Resource Classroom. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2018;14(6):2563-86. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/90091

AMA

Blom N, Haupt G, Fraser W. Naïve Designers’ Information Use during the Design Process in a Low-Resource Classroom. EURASIA J Math Sci Tech Ed. 2018;14(6), 2563-2586. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/90091

Chicago

Blom, Nicolaas, Grietjie Haupt, and William Fraser. "Naïve Designers’ Information Use during the Design Process in a Low-Resource Classroom". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education 2018 14 no. 6 (2018): 2563-2586. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/90091

Harvard

Blom, N., Haupt, G., and Fraser, W. (2018). Naïve Designers’ Information Use during the Design Process in a Low-Resource Classroom. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 14(6), pp. 2563-2586. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/90091

MLA

Blom, Nicolaas et al. "Naïve Designers’ Information Use during the Design Process in a Low-Resource Classroom". Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, vol. 14, no. 6, 2018, pp. 2563-2586. https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/90091