(Contemporary Issues in) Technology Education

Call for Papers

LUMAT invites researchers, practitioners, and educators to contribute to the upcoming special issue on (Contemporary Issues in) Technology Education.

Description

In a contemporary world, technology is ever more present in the everyday life of all citizens regardless of their age. Hence technological literacy is becoming an increasingly important part of general education and its development should be enhanced throughout the educational path. Technology education contains many facets including understanding the role and relations of technology in society (technology as a phenomenon), grasping the essential aspects of creating a technological artifact or solving a technology-related problem (technology as a process), and using technology in different situations and circumstances (technology as a tool).

Technology education aims to help students with technology by providing them with the tools and skills needed to understand and utilise it. It can take place in all levels of education from kindergarten to adult education. Technology education is a complex domain with several interrelationships between discourses surrounding technology and social, economic, political, cultural, and philosophical perspectives. It can relate to numerous topics, subjects, and disciplines, and cover a broad range of activities from a learning task accomplished in minutes to long processes for mastering a great comprehension or expert skill. However, a common denominator for all technology education is/should be that it explicitly aims at learning about technology. Thus, it can be questioned whether, for example, the mere use of educational technology in teaching and learning other subjects with no learning objectives related to technology, can be regarded as technology education.

This special issue welcomes both theoretical and empirical contributions from all aspects and all levels of technology education. We do, however, require, that the work presents clearly how it relates to learning about or for technology. Topics to be addressed can include – but are not limited to:

  • Exploring the variety of approaches that are used to teach technology, such as Inquiry-based learning, Problem-based Learning, Project-based learning, and Design-based Learning, by defining, and identifying the advantages and disadvantages for teaching and learning. 
  • Exploring the implications of drawing on discipline curriculum knowledge into mainstream integrated technology education projects, and how student learning can be mapped. 
  • Investigating how both boys’ and girls’ interests and behaviors can be accommodated in technology education to help ensure the development of appropriate literacies for all.

Deadlines and special issue timetable:

  • Submission deadline (full paper): May 31, 2023
  • After the deadline we will implement continuous publication model.

We welcome both empirical as well as theoretical manuscripts in English, Finnish and Swedish

Acceptance criteria for the manuscripts are that they:

  • Are research-based and have not been previously published.
  • Contain the following subsections:
    • Context/relevance of the study: Why the research was conducted.
    • Aim/research questions: What guided the research.
    • Theoretical framework/conceptual rationale/pragmatic grounding: How the current research is connected to the earlier studies.
    • Research methods and research design: How the research was conducted (both empirical and theoretical manuscripts are welcome).
    • Results (in theoretical manuscripts, the discussion on how the manuscript contributes to the earlier research can be combined with the discussion section and Result section might be omitted.
    • Discussion/Conclusions/Implications: How the research questions were answered, how the research results contribute to the field.
    • References in APA 7 style: Use the template on the journal website.
  • Follow the academic research guidelines for ethical and professional academic publishing, such as: publishing original work, accurate and detailed findings and methodology, including those writers as authors that have contributed to the work significantly; including all the permissions to publish previously published content from the copyright holders; adhering to (personal) data protection legislation (confidential information, identifying individuals, etc.)
  • Are clearly written - English clarity and correct grammar are expected. If necessary, the authors are asked to proofread, and copy edit the manuscripts prior to the submission.

General paper submission guidelines can be found here.

Guest editors

PhD Johanna Naukkarinen, LUT University, Finland
PhD Sonja Niiranen, Tampere University, Finland