This article discusses one part of the data from a larger research project that sought to identify factors that secondary school teachers of design and technology (D&T) in England felt may have contributed to the decline in entries at GCSE level within the subject. This study was designed to ensure the teacher's voice could be heard. Research…

The integration of robots into classroom settings has a long-established presence in both general and vocational education. With the developments in Industry 4.0, the importance of robotics in schools has also increased, which has become clear through various funding programmes. Especially in general education, there is often a focus on utilising…

The materials and artefacts utilized by teachers and students play a crucial role in education. In a subject like technology, where many teachers feel they do not have sufficient competence, curriculum materials such as textbooks and teacher guides provide important support for teachers. Teacher guides, in particular, have the potential to support…

This paper is a systematic literature review of works focused on user-centred design practices and their potential application in pedagogical contexts in design and technology (D&T) education. It is a response to the increasingly complex demand of allowing students to develop so-called 21st-century skills within a D&T curriculum, which is…

In this study, we provide insights about secondary school students' conversation about products' life cycles in relation to three dimensions of sustainable development: economic, social, and ecological sustainable development but also what traces of view that appear in these conversations. Production and consumption are part of complex…

Learning to reason in the design process is enclosed in the process of learning to design. Hence, in this study, we explore teacher-student interactions with the aim of describing teachers' support strategies in relation to enacted reasoning in the design process in secondary school technology education in Sweden. The study deploys social cultural…

In design technology education, educators value student outcomes centered on concrete design ideas and a comprehensive understanding of prototyping. However, technology education must consider not only the general technology design process and quality but also human-technology interactions. Inevitably, designs for people are enmeshed in complex…

In this exploratory case study, we focus on empathy, an important aspect of contemporary design practices. We aim to explore how design empathy manifested in students' design processes. A three-month participatory design project was created and assigned to students (aged 14--15), with the following brief: 'co-design and make an e-textile product…

This study investigates junior high school students' perspectives on improving manufactured products and their perceptions as users after participating in materials processing technology learning in Japan. Guided by recent changes in Japanese curriculum guidelines emphasizing real-world application, we conducted a web-based survey collecting 721…

This article reports on the results of a survey of Design and Technology educators, predominantly based in England that sought evidence of the extent to which the educators engaged with educational research more generally and also specifically within Design and Technology Education. The survey was sponsored by the professional Association of…

Design Sprint is an intensive and innovation-focused framework based on Design Thinking principles. This study discusses the potential usage of the design sprint framework in industrial design education, and focuses on its strengths and weaknesses as an educational tool. Within this context, the study reports on a design sprint workshop involving…

This study aims to investigate affordances of models and modelling in design projects in technology education. To learn more about affordances when working with models and modelling, four Swedish technology teachers were interviewed using a narrative approach. Despite a small number of informants data were rich, containing detailed descriptions of…

Finland has its own version of a "makerspace": craft class. Originally, there was one craft class for boys and one for girls. Later, there were classes for different materials, especially for wood and textiles, which are deep-rooted concepts in the Finnish crafts mindset. To reclaim craft class for pupils, or "makers", we must…

Technology subjects are a relatively recent addition to the discipline offerings at postprimary level, and have a short but interesting history in terms of associated educational research. In this paper, an overview of the evolving research agendas that emerged in response to the nature of practice, from the perspectives of the Technology…

Design and technology (D&T) emerged from a very different education context than it finds itself in today. D&T was to be included in the National Curriculum for England because it was perceived that what children learnt from design and technological activity could not be learnt in another way (DES/WO, 1988). Furthermore, it connected a…