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This paper addresses policy effects of international mobility in developing countries. It proposes a multilevel approach to study research training policies, specifically focusing on international mobility schemes as capacity-building instruments, where effects need to be identified at both individual and organizational levels. The paper asserts that current categorizations of country efforts to build a solid scientific base should consider transference of effects in domestic research contexts. Using a survey and interview-based study of a mobility policy in Mexico, and nanotechnology-related disciplines and sectors, this paper's findings suggest that mobility policies are crucial in creating high-quality individual research skills, but that their impact on building domestic research capacity may be modest. This paper contributes to the evaluation literature on national research training programs and their influence on research capacity in two ways. First, it mobilizes a multilevel analytical approach to examine the effects of policies on individuals and organizations, offering a broader conceptualization of impact. Second, by introducing these individual and organizational effects, the paper provides insights into how effects are enacted and transferred.

Research teams must collaborate with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to identify effective and inclusive responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health emergencies. Collaborating remotely requires telecommunication and other technologies. We designed and evaluated a digital "Toolkit for Remote Inclusive Research" to provide research teams with evidence-informed strategies to make remote research accessible to and inclusive of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. First, we completed a rapid scoping review to identify technology used by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities on collaborative research teams. Second, we designed a digital toolkit featuring 23 strategies identified in the review. Third, six inclusive researchers evaluated the toolkit. We illustrate how our team used these evidence-informed strategies during the past year to develop this and other tools to support inclusive research.

In response to the lack of literature, we conducted a phenomenological study of 10 school counselors in four states and nine school districts exploring their experiences providing virtual school counseling services during the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many K-12 schools were closed. Results of this study indicated that overall, school counselors found the experience of providing virtual services during the initial stages of the pandemic to be negative, with their stated experiences centering around three themes: (a) difficulty meeting with students in virtual settings (i.e., feeling frustration and grief due to challenges meeting with students virtually), (b) abrupt adjustment (i.e., sudden changes and the need to pivot quickly, due to the pandemic), and (c) the challenge of addressing mental health complexities (i.e., difficulty in meeting nuanced mental health needs). We provide implications for practice, preparation, school/district policy, and research surrounding virtual school counseling during times of crisis and recovery, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Last, we discuss implications for virtual school counseling within the future of school counseling.

Technology use in agriculture or "AgTech" (Agricultural Technology), is rapidly changing conventional farming practices and decision-making processes. To ensure the industry can successfully harness the power of AgTech, digital skill development of workers is crucial. This can be achieved by adequate education of the future workforce, today's students. However, a key requirement for student education is to ensure teachers are aware and knowledgeable of AgTech. Teachers' perception of agriculture is also important as they are key influencers of the next generation's awareness of careers in the industry. This study explores the views of Australian "Technology Mandatory" teachers, a compulsory subject for Years 7 - 8 students containing an agriculture component, with the aim of determining their awareness and perception of AgTech. Teachers were surveyed after participation in a professional development workshop focused on livestock tracking technologies. Results found that teacher perceptions of the agricultural industry had an impact on their knowledge of AgTech on-farm. Conversely, teacher connection to the agricultural industry did not have an impact on awareness. Instead, connection to the agricultural industry was significantly associated with demographic factors including current school location and teaching experience, as well as the use of traditional media, social media and family and friends to gather information on the industry. Overall, most participants understood the importance of technology use for improving animal welfare, productivity and profitability, and environmental sustainability outcomes, and had a positive perception of the industry.

This study explains the development of science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM) interest among elementary and middle schoolchildren. The cohort longitudinal design was applied, starting with three cohorts of students--fourth (10 years), fifth (11 years), and sixth (12 years) grade--followed for three consecutive years. A total of 947 pupils responded to general and specific STEM interest measures. The results show that the level of STEM interest of children is generally low. Gender differences in STEM interest in favor of boys are apparent in all STEM areas, except science. The observed gender gaps in interest over time are constant, except for a small increase in gender difference of engineering interest. The average rate of change of STEM interest over time is mostly insignificant. Large interindividual variability of interests' scores and slopes indicates that the level of STEM interest and its change over time are highly individualized phenomena.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is a teaching and learning approach that is based on the principles that underpin sustainability and applies to all levels of education. However, there is a scarcity of research on the integration of curricula with ESD. In this study, secondary school curricula in Germany (Bavaria) (geography, nature and technology) and secondary school curricula in Turkey (social studies, sciences) were compared in terms of learning outcomes and learning areas to the principles of sustainable development (social-environmental-economic). Attempts have been made to shed light on how ESD is reflected in the curricula of Turkey and Germany, as well as how the approach of ESD directs the education curricula. According to the findings of the study, the learning outcomes and learning areas of the curricula of Turkey and Germany are related to the principles of sustainable development, and learning outcomes related to SD dimensions are given more place in the upper grades. Turkey's social studies curriculum is more related to SD's social dimension principles; the science curriculum is more related to SD's environmental dimension principles; and Germany's geography, nature and technology curricula are more related to SD's environmental dimension principles. The number of learning outcomes related to the economic dimension principles of SD in both countries' curricula has been determined to be very low. Especially in Germany's curricula, unlike Turkey's curricula, it has been determined that students offer solutions to existing environmental-social-economic problems for sustainability in the context of problem-solving skills and learning outcomes that include case study activities are included.

It is commonly known that the letter M in the two acronyms HPM and STEM stands for mathematics, and it is natural to regard mathematics as playing a significant role in science education. However, it seems that appropriate attention is not usually accorded to the role of M in the area of STEM where mathematics tends to be marginalized. In fact, throughout history one witnesses STEM at work so that the discussion of HPM and STEM in parallel will be beneficial to both. In both the historical and pedagogical aspects, it may be worthwhile to note that history of mathematics affords some means to mirror several different mathematical worlds in the context of HPM in a pluralistic way in order to offer a fuller view of the subject. In this paper I examine this issue through sampling many examples gleaned from the history of mathematics, particularly the role of M in the world of science and technology.

An experiment aimed at developing creative thinking and emotional literacy in adolescents was carried out. The study involved 25 adolescents aged 14-16 years and their parents--37 people (37-45 years old). Based on the use of the NanoStudio application, a creative improvisation training session was conducted among adolescents in the context of educational cases. The methodology for the development of creative skill turned out to be interesting, exciting, and effective; collaboration with children, according to parents, created an atmosphere of community and promoted an active and passionate desire for joint creative actions. The results of the survey of adolescents demonstrated a positive attitude to the implementation of creative practices which was accompanied by interest, enthusiasm, joy, trust, admiration, delight, and optimism. Since adolescence is a period of increased emotionality, which is characterized by risky behavior associated with the formation of new views, values, and interests, the need of young people for psychological adaptation, the practical value of the study lies in demonstrating the practical experience of transforming the emotional experiences of adolescents into a creative musical product, as an alternative behavior, in terms of interaction of personal, parental, and pedagogical contexts.

The recent technological revolution, often referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution or the Second Machine Age, has brought significant changes in both the knowledge production process and its outputs. These changes have raised the question of whether a doctoral degree will retain its unique value as a knowledge creator in the future. In addition, the global challenges confronting society, such as climate change and economic inequality, require a better response from doctoral education and raise the question of whether the current form of doctoral education will meet the demands of future society. Doctoral education might harness technological developments wisely to address these challenges, or it might miss this opportunity and thus lose its valuable role in educating advanced researchers. Based on a critical review of the literature, this paper explores the meaning of the profession in the future at a time of technological revolution and imagines possible future scenarios for doctoral education. The paper applies Ronald Barnett's framework for the imaginative university, focusing on ideological, dystopian, persuasive and utopian universities, and describes the potential changes to doctoral education.

Pre-college engineering education has gained traction in U.S. schools over the past twenty years. This growth is evident with engineering emerging as a crosscutting discipline in the Next Generation Science Standards. However, the scarcity of professional development (PD) for K-12 teachers who want to teach engineering and the few PD opportunities with the characteristics shown to improve teacher learning, i.e., contact time, long-term support, and follow-up, suggest a need for new and innovative PD offerings for K-12 teachers. We developed a 45-hour graduate course specifically for K-12 teachers to incorporate engineering into their classrooms and evaluated the effect of this long-term PD on K-12 teaching engineering self-efficacy. Additionally, this study looked at how the participants translated the course into their teaching practices. Forty-one in-service teachers participated either in a 2018 or 2019 semester-long course that combined nanotechnology content and Project-Based Learning pedagogy. Pre-post measures using Teaching Engineering Self-Efficacy Scale revealed significant gains in both cohort teachers' self-efficacy. Teachers found the course effective in building their technical skills and providing beneficial PD. This study's significant positive outcomes indicate that the course analyzed serves as a pre-college engineering education PD model.

Blockchain, which is a disruptive technology, affects many technologies, and it will affect many other technologies. Main property of blockchain technologies is assuring trust without central authorization. This is achieved through immutable data and decentralization. Moreover, blockchain is founded on the principles of cryptography, which provides the required infrastructure for the trust. First application of the blockchain technologies is Bitcoin cryptocurrency. After the birth of Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies began to change financial systems. Learning of blockchain is difficult because blockchain and its related technologies are strange for most of the people. In order to figure out blockchain technologies, the concepts like cryptography, cryptocurrency, immutable data and decentralization should have been understood. Therefore, blockchain and its related technologies should be learned through efficient learning mechanisms. Project-based learning, team-based learning, active learning and competition-based learning can be used for efficient teaching of blockchain. Competition-based learning has been used in many areas successfully for years. Smart contract development is the programming part of blockchain technologies. In this paper, competition-based learning is applied to blockchain programming to increase learning efficiency. In addition, a methodology is presented to apply competition-based learning to blockchain programming.

Context: International scholarship and policy tend to depict national structures governing Vocational Education and Training (VET) as uniform and devoid of internal differences. This macro perspective neglects the numerous processes at the meso and micro level that shape the structure and content of VET. This article focusses on professional associations (meso level) in Switzerland to examine the heterogeneity of governance of individual VET programmes that can exist within one country or one collective skill formation system. Approach: Drawing on insights from historical institutionalism and research on corporatism, we argue that these differences are the product of the characteristics, traditional practices and styles of reasoning of the various associations involved in VET governance. Our analysis is based on expert interviews and governance documents in two vocational areas: Electrotechnology and food services. Findings: We identify and decode an array of cooperative practices and show that collective skill formation has a different meaning for different associations and, correspondingly, different occupations. Collaboration with state actors, unions, VET schools and single firms, as well as voting procedures, differ considerably between associations. Furthermore, we find that these different modes of governance are determined by associational characteristics such as size, level of professionalization, location and established cooperative practices, as well as traditional styles of reasonings. Conclusion: The findings indicate that the decisions taken are not always the product of current day training requirements but of historically grown associational characteristics. Thus, path dependencies are to be considered not only at a macro level but also at the meso level. There is a multifaceted variety of governance approaches beneath the classification "collective skill formation system". Associations are key in defining VET content, working life structures and collectivity.

The purpose of the study is to determine the knowledge and awareness of gifted children receiving education in the Science and Art Center on nanotechnology. The descriptive survey model was used in the study. The purposeful sampling method was chosen and a total of 160 students receiving education in two Science and Art Centers located in the city of Antalya in the 2018-2019 academic year were included in the study. The students consisted of 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th-grade students. The study tested whether the nanotechnology knowledge levels of gifted students differ according to the variables of students 'gender, grade level, knowledge source, parents' education level, and occupation. According to the findings, while the students' knowledge and awareness of nanotechnology did not create a significant difference in terms of the gender variable, it was determined that as the grade level increased, the knowledge and awareness level also increased. Also, it was determined that as the parents' education level increased, the students' knowledge on nanotechnology increased and that the knowledge and awareness of students whose parents are engineers or doctors were higher compared to the other students.

Purpose: Studies of human capital and economic growth were initially focused on labour and physical capital, but it was later recognised that factors such as education, health, and technology also affected this relationship. The present study aims to examine the effects of education, health, and innovation/technology, as the components of human capital, on economic growth. Method: This study brings together different indicators of education, health, and innovation/technology to calculate index values for the 1999-2015 period, using data on 31 developed and developing economies. It prefers to adopt a holistic approach, making use of an index that brings together multiple variables used in the literature rather than the 'best/most appropriate' proxy variable, in order to avoid a 'narrowing' of the human capital goals. These values were used to examine the relationship between human capital and economic growth. Findings: It was found that education, health, and innovation/technology, in that order, made the biggest contribution to economic growth in developed and developing economies; education and health made a bigger contribution to growth in developing economies; and innovation/technology made a bigger contribution in developed economies. Implications for Research and Practice: These findings have implications for countries trying to achieve stable economic growth, their efforts should be directed to improve the quality of education, and to implement projects with high short-term returns.

This study aims to develop a measurement tool to measure pre-service science fields teachers' (PSSFT') attitudes towards nanotechnology. For this purpose, a five-point Likert-type scale consisting of 55 items was applied to 373 PSSFT who enrolled in science fields (Science, Chemistry, Biology, Physics) at the grades 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at a public university in Turkey. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) determined that the scale had a 3-factor structure consisting of 24 items and the factors explained 55.854% of the attitude variable's total variance. Verification of the model was tested by applying confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The CFA data were obtained from 770 PSSFT enrolled in science fields at the grades 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th at two different public universities in Turkey. The results obtained from CFA were in agreement with the model obtained by EFA. Cronbach's alpha (Cr-[alpha]) reliability of the scale was calculated to be 0.926. Findings from the validity and reliability analyses show that the scale is a valid and reliable measurement tool that can measure PSSFT' attitudes towards nanotechnology.

Financial behavior is a means by which a person treats, manages, and uses available financial resources. This research aims to determine the effect of financial literacy and the use of financial technology on financial satisfaction through financial behavior as an intervening factor. Data were collected from 112 economics teachers using purposive proportional random sampling technique. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with AMOS 26 software was used to analyze the data. The results of this research indicate that financial literacy has no effect on financial behavior, but the use of financial technology has an effect on financial behavior, financial literacy and the use of financial technology has an effect on satisfaction finance. It was also found that financial literacy and the use of financial technology were mediated by financial behavior. Finally, use of financial technology had no effect on financial satisfaction through financial behavior as an intervening variable. These results have useful practical and theoretical implications.

An increasing trend of environmental problems is largely associated with human interaction with nature. While individual attitudes and behavior play a pivotal role in attaining sustainable ecological actions, this article questions whether there is adequate coverage of the current environmental issues in the existing scales measuring environmental attitudes and behaviors. To achieve the United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs), sustainable efforts need to be invested to shape human interaction with nature. Nonetheless, the question of whether an effective change in attitudinal and behavioral constructs can translate into objective ecological actions requires sound measurements. Based on an analysis of 54 scales, the present article reveals that some critical environmental issues such as climate change and inclusiveness of science and technology have largely been neglected. It further brings out a conclusion that proposes a transitional approach for environmental psychologists to rethink the measurement approaches that broadly enhances sustainable development in global terms.

Japan's operating budget for its national universities has been reduced since 2004 year by year, leaving a tight competition among universities in securing research funding. Urban universities with several prominent researchers can operate by securing competitive funding, joint research with companies, and donations, whereas small rural universities struggle with finances. How should small rural universities survive in the future? The vision and mission of Hamamatsu University School of Medicine (HUSM), a rural medical college, is to play a central role in the local community medicine through medical photonics research and academia-industry-government collaboration. HUSM is a member of the regional industrial cluster, and research administrators (RAs) have promoted the medical photonics filed through activities such as education, matching, funding, research and development support, technology transfer, and sales promotion support to make the university distinctive. RAs collaborate with universities, companies, and local governments in the same region to conduct joint research and commercialize products as though these units were a single organization. As a result, the number of joint research projects and the amount of revenue from joint research have increased every year. The government has recognized this unique approach. Furthermore, university consolidation is being pursued as a cost-saving measure to increase the money spent on research. Consolidation can strengthen the ability of university research, and can result in more joint research with companies and more research funding.

Communication centers on university campuses can benefit from the experience of other disciplines with established norms and educational practices. This article examines the legal profession, the business profession, and healthcare with the intent to locate meaningful overlap that can be practically applied to communication centers. While different, each of the three fields promotes shared decision-making, ongoing training specific to ethical practice, and promotes technical adaptation. Examining service and training in these three professional fields led the authors to identify a framework for communication centers that focuses on the following areas: standard practice and education, ethics, and technology.

Purpose: This study conducts a systematic review of policy reforms for the evaluation of scientific and technological research (E-STR) in China's colleges. In doing so, it identifies changes to past policies, as well as the objectives and realizability of the most recent policy reform. Design/Approach/Methods: This study systematically reviews the contexts of E-STR policy reforms in China's colleges post 2000 using three important related policy documents from 2003, 2013, and 2020 as samples. Research findings were obtained via content analysis. Findings: Unlike previous attempts, the most recent policy reform has incorporated the lessons learned while introducing highly targeted measures and a monitoring mechanism. Such reform should accelerate the promotion of major original scientific research in China's colleges, enhance the contribution of scientific research to socioeconomic development, and strengthen support for the cultivation of undergraduate talents. Originality/Value: Initiated in the early part of 2000, China's latest E-STR policy reform constitutes an important turning point in the initiative to burst the research bubble and return to the essence of innovation. It will drive China's colleges to embark on a research path that places value on original innovation and contribution to socioeconomic development.

The aim of the current study was to explore science teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology through the use of Q methodology. 17 science teachers were sampled as participants, and to explore their perceptions of the nature of technology, they ranked a Q-sort of 36 statements that constituted the following six categories: (i) definition of technology, (ii) the relationship between science and technology, (iii) the impact of society on technology, (iv) the impact of technology on society, (v) the impact of technology on environment, and (vi) the impact of technology on economy. As the participants completed their Q-sort, they were interviewed. Analysis of the participants' Q-sorts resulted in a three-factor solution, i.e. three distinct patterns of perception about the nature of technology. The three perspectives included teachers who are (i) equally aware of the benefits and drawbacks of technology and the relation of it to science, (ii) optimist about technology and aware of its dependence on society, and (iii) optimist about technological innovations but tempered by technology-driven environmental and social issues. Findings indicated gender and years of professional experience as potential determiners within these perspectives, which needs further research.

In light of the fact that technology teachers' understandings of the nature of technology (NoT) determine students' perceptions of NoT, this study turned attention to technology teachers, and developed a comprehensive theoretical instrument for assessing their understandings of NoT. The theoretical framework of NoT was proposed using a theory-based explanation informed by the philosophy of technology (PoT), historical, sociological and educational literature. The eight dimensions were as follows: 'technology as object', 'technology as knowledge', 'technology as activity', 'technology as volition', 'history of technology', 'the role of technology in society', 'the relationship between science and technology', and 'technology as a double-edged sword'. Eight international experts were invited to review the content validity of the NoT scale, and 835 valid questionnaires answered by Chinese high school general technology teachers were used to test the reliability and convergent validity of the scale. The results showed that the NoT scale had a high reliability and good validity, which could be used to measure and assess technology teachers' understandings of NoT. The development of the NoT scale provided a new perspective for interpreting NoT, and helped technology teachers consider how to more effectively transfer their understandings of NoT to students.

Technology is ubiquitous and culturally situated, influencing and impacting lives every second of every day. As humanity emerged, so did technological development. Diverse cultural groups developed technologies, related knowledge, and processes, to meet emerging needs or realise opportunities--such as trade. There is little doubt that some technological processes and knowledge travelled with people as they explored the world. Other technological development is likely to have evolved in parallel, in response to cultural needs and situations. Some technological knowledge and processes became unique to specific cultural groups, with others crossing boundaries. A boundary is defined here as something that indicates confines or limits. Boundaries are represented in diverse ways in this paper, such as in ethnic, cultural, and geographical bounds. As humans evolved from apes they became bipedal, thus freeing their hands for other tasks. This evolution, coupled with the emergence of the thumb, enabled significant manipulation of the environment and materials, leading in turn to the development of technological outcomes and processes. As humans became distributed around the world, so did their technological know-how. Survival across a range of geological locations and climates meant the modification of existing technologies and processes, and emergence of others. The authors use their professional experience as technology educators to situate their arguments, and apply food preservation processes to illustrate similarities across technologies, which resulted from geological, cultural, and time boundaries. In some cases, these responses were a result of food supply issues, during times of short supply in droughts, winter, busy times, or travel. The article identifies two key ideas pertinent to a developing understanding of the nature of technology as defined in the New Zealand Curriculum; that technology has always been transformative, that technological development is not linear, but at times occurs in parallel--across geographical and cultural boundaries.

A great deal of attention has been focused on technological innovation, for example, face recognition, which has been used in some countries in various fields. Nonetheless, there has been little attention paid to parents' acceptance of the use of face recognition systems on campus. To address this gap in the literature, this study examined how different degrees of technological innovativeness and dangerous beliefs in the virtual world (DBVW) influence parents' perceived value of using and intention to continue supporting schools' use of face recognition systems. This study adopted snowball sampling to collect data through questionnaires, and received 380 valid responses from parents living in Xuzhou, China. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data, with results indicating that: (1) DBVW was negatively related to perceived value; (2) technological innovativeness was positively related to perceived value; and (3) perceived value was positively related to continuance intention to use face recognition systems. The results suggest that parents support the use of face recognition systems in elementary school; thus, such systems can be adopted by other elementary schools in other areas.

Post-truth is a social condition that threatens the trust in science and people's critical thinking. This paper analyzes some of the educational responses to post-truth, claiming the potential contributions of Science and Technology Studies (STS). Some of the responses based on traditional epistemology, characterized as "epistemological vaccines," are contrasted with some of the possible responses based on a more complex and interdisciplinary knowledge of science and technology. It is argued that epistemological vaccines, despite having an enormous value in fighting against post-truth, are insufficient to transform this social condition and its implications for science and technology. It is sustained that a social epistemology and, moreover, an expert interdisciplinary approach to the knowledge of science and technology, such as the one offered by STS, is required to consolidate stronger educational strategies, formulating "STS vaccines," that could be useful as a counterweight to understand and deconstruct post-truth. Given that the STS academic field has developed a good account of how scientific facts and social trust in science are constructed, it also has the capacity to show how post-truth and alternative facts are constructed, unmasking for whom it is important that we decry science. The conclusion points toward the urgency to rethink the current influence of the STS field in the educational context to relocate the STS education.

Recent reforms in Swiss higher education transformed vocational training institutions with a teaching mission into universities of applied sciences and universities of teacher education that should balance research and teaching activities of individual lecturers following the Humboldtian model. Drawing on the concept of ambidexterity, we aim to examine the current outcome of the reforms in terms of the structural conditions for research and the research competence of lecturers at the two new types of universities. By means of a document analysis, we first assess how the shift manifests itself in institutional mission statements. We then analyze recent survey data (N=2454) regarding the lecturers' perceptions of the structural conditions for research and their research competence. While our findings suggest that the new higher education sector has formally adopted the Humboldtian model, notable differences between the two types of universities can be observed in the extent to which the new policy imperatives have influenced the mission statements. Furthermore, we find a certain degree of mismatch between the organizational ambidexterity required by the Humboldtian model, the structural conditions for research encountered by lecturers, and the individual research competence. A number of conceptual and policy implications are drawn.

This paper explores the potential for a mode of postqualitative inquiry as generative knowledge-affect by looking towards the practice-led in-progress intermedial project, "We Found A Body." The project functions as a form of urban play in a way that decentres and reconstructs participants so that their bodies, their technology and the environment they 'play' in become intertwined. I use a posthumanist queer reading of performativity (Barad, 2003, 2011) coupled with an affect-focused study of world-making (Harris & Jones, 2019) alongside a politics of affect to analyse how "We Found a Body," in its potential for intraaction of human, technology, narrative and environment, can reconfigure and intertwine bodies and matter in a dynamic and embodied way. I argue that creative intermedial practice can produce counternarratives where new modes of belonging within space and time exist, and where extended ways of being human are at play (Myers, 2020). This is a space where the artwork acts as a performative call to action where iterative materialisation creates an intrabody of the human and more-than-human and opens up future methods within postqualitative inquiry.

In recent years, there has been a surge in research in spatial thinking across the international community. We now know that spatial skills are malleable and that they are linked to success across multiple disciplines, most notably Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). While spatial skills have been examined by cognitive scientists in laboratory environments for decades, current research is examining how these skills can be developed in field-based environments. In this paper, we present findings from a study within a Technology Teacher preparation programme where we examined first-year students' spatial skills on entry to university. We explain why it was necessary to embed a spatial skills intervention into Year 1 of the programme and we describe the impact that this had on students' spatial scores and on academic performance. The findings from our study highlight a consistent gender gap in spatial scores at the start of the first-year with female students entering the Technology Teacher preparation programme at a lower base level than male students. We describe how we integrated spatial development activities into an existing course and how an improvement in spatial scores and overall course performance was observed. The paper concludes by discussing the long-term sustainability of integrating spatial interventions within teacher preparation programmes while also highlighting the importance of future research to examine spatial skills as a fundamental component of technological capability.

This study aims at characterizing elementary pre-service teachers' conscious lack of knowledge about familiar technical artefacts and its relation to their knowledge about these artefacts. The participants were asked to state what they knew and also what they did not know about a sample of familiar technical artefacts such as a fan or a lock. The results showed a difference between the structure of the student teachers' lack of knowledge of these artefacts and the structure of their actual knowledge. These differences were analyzed in relation to Kroes' (Camb J Econ 34:51-62, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bep019) model of technical artefacts. Firstly, the student teachers' conscious lack of knowledge was mainly focused on the artefacts' behavior rather than on their components and materials. Secondly, the participants found the function features of the artefacts unproblematic. Thirdly, unknown features about the origin of the artefacts were more frequently cited than the corresponding knowledge features. Finally, non-perceptual properties of the artefacts and the causal relations in which they or their parts are involved were important components both of the students' knowledge and of the students' unknowns.

This research examined both the relationship and the effects of learning styles and student engagement at three selected "Universiti Teknologi MARA," (UiTM) Malaysia state campuses using the VARK learning style model. The effects of students' learning styles and their relationships to classroom engagement were analyzed. Three categories of students' majors which were Social Science (SS), Technical Science (TS) and Pure Science (PS) were segregated to identify the moderating effects of student motivation on the relationship between learning styles and student engagement. The results revealed that only visual learning style was found to influence all three dimensions (behavioral, cognitive and emotional) elements of student engagement. These results also showed that visual learners had higher classroom engagement as opposed to both auditory and kinesthetic learners. It was also reported that all elements of student motivation (achievement, recognition, relationship with peers and relationship with lecturers) did significantly moderate the relationship between learning styles and student engagement. It is recommended that instructors should employ varieties of teaching methods to encourage student engagement according to their fields of study. It is further suggested that motivation should be enriched among students to yield higher student classroom engagement.

Nanoscience and nanotechnology are two key areas in the development of new technologies. However, scientific advances in these fields are still far removed from the contents taught in schools. But what if basic concepts within these areas were introduced in secondary schools? We believe science is an essential facet of culture and the most recent scientific advances should be within everyone's reach. With this in mind, we have developed and tested an educational toolkit to transfer complex scientific concepts in classrooms. The toolkit is based on design and creative thinking methodologies, and graphene is used as an example of a subject that is challenging to communicate within the area of nanoscience. This paper highlights the development of the toolkit and it being tested out in a secondary school by 93 students between the ages of 11 and 13. The testing was carried out through the creation of a workshop called "Graphene in the Classroom." We determined five evaluation categories: Acquiring Knowledge, Satisfaction, Challenges, Teamwork, and Facilitator's Role. The results show that integrating scientific content and design methodologies is a complex yet profitable strategy. The toolkit demonstrated to allow the translation of a complex language into friendlier, more approachable, and easier language. The classroom climate was positive and the presence of a facilitator enhanced motivation, empathy, scientific rigor, and adequate adaptation of contents.

Quality supervision of teacher candidates during field placements can be a challenge for many university supervisors, particularly given time required for travel, locating an appropriate setting, and identifying effective ways to support teacher candidates in their implementation of evidence-based practices. One effective way to support teacher candidates in their use of evidence-based practices is technology-enhanced performance-based feedback. University supervisors have a range of knowledge and experience in implementing performance-based feedback and using technology to deliver feedback. The purpose of this article is to describe how university supervisors can deliver technology-enhanced performance-based feedback to support teacher candidates' use of evidence-based practices within authentic education environments. Specifically, we identify different modes of technology, which university supervisors can use to deliver performance-based feedback (e.g., email, text messaging, bug-in-ear, and video-based feedback). Additionally, we include logistical and practical suggestions for university supervisors to consider when implementing technology-enhanced performance-based feedback to support teacher candidates during field placements.

This manuscript is a published account of the 2019 Distinguished Lecture of the American Association of Agricultural Education (AAAE) Annual Meeting. The theme of this lecture is regenerative agriculture which the author considers to be one of the most important agricultural movements occurring today. The author speaks to fellow Agricultural educators of the ever increasing vulnerability of the food system. He argues that although modern technology has elevated most peoples' food security and material wealth, this has occurred at the expense of natural resources upon which humans ultimately depend. He informs the audience that this country now has a significantly degraded resource base in which the availability of quality soils, water resources, and other essential inputs are threatened. Additionally, the author makes the case that industrialization and consolidation has increased food value chain interdependence with other systems such as energy, decreasing the resilience of food systems to economic, environmental, or social shocks from the local to global scale. The author cautions that Agriculture must therefore be adaptive and able to address environmental, social, cultural and economic complexity, while being alert to unintended consequences. While agreeing that the hardest thing to do in the world is to grow or raise food while at the same time regenerating ecosystems process, the author also warns that sustaining our natural resources does not go far enough, and advances the need to regenerate our soils and the overarching ecosystem processes that determine the health of the land.

The lack of racial diversity in the technology industry has been widely acknowledged, especially since 2014 when many Silicon Valley companies, like Google, Facebook, and Intel, released racial diversity data. Howard University faculty involved in tech entrepreneurship noticed the racial disparity first-hand as entrepreneurs themselves and as participants in entrepreneurship events and conferences. They set out to build an innovation ecosystem at Howard, a historically Black University, in order to address this gap and prepare more traditionally underrepresented engineering professionals for careers in the current and future technology innovation sector. This paper explores the building of an innovation ecosystem at Howard University and addresses how it started, what it entails, outcomes that have been observed thus far, and next steps.

Nowadays, technologies play a key role in educational research processes, especially in the context of complex designs or integrative perspectives (qualitative and quantitative). Affordances provided by new tools and technological devices are constantly impacting the way educational research is carried out. Consequently, this growing importance (and dependence on) technology for educational research calls for a deeper reflection, not only about its clear benefits, but also about its potential drawbacks and limitations. This paper explores this tension in a specific mixed-methods research design aimed at understanding the barriers preventing the adoption of Learning Design (LD) tools/methods, a significant problem in the research field of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). Different actors (teachers and researchers) were involved in the research design, which included a systematic literature review, a Delphi study and a case study. Such an articulated design required the adoption of technologies to support the process in all its phases. The paper describes the main methodological implications of the employed technologies in the research. The conclusions of the paper highlight that while technologies definitely support a higher level of complexity and articulation of the research design, they might also lead to superficial or biased results.

There is a need to investigate didactic strategies that can enhance engagement in science and mathematics education. This paper reports on the introduction of WebQuests, as part of collaborative inquiry, to enhance students' engagement in their mathematics lessons in Qatar. We present interview data gathered from eight student focus groups (grades 5 to 9) before and after the introduction of WebQuest lessons. Constant comparative analysis was used to examine students' reactions to using WebQuests in developing student-directed learning and collaboration in relation to support for learning. The analysis identified prospective reactions that were often confirmed retrospectively following the WebQuest lessons. These reactions were further analysed as external expressions of affect encoded by trait-like emotions that were similar to Goldin et al.'s (2011) notion of engagement structures. We suggest that the confirmation of reactions and emotions was influenced by students' levels of tolerance for ambiguity as a common element across engagement structures.

The main problem in students' lower achievement lies in the cognitive complexity of the problem. The aim of this research was to create and validate the procedure for the assessment of the cognitive complexity of chemical technology problem tasks. The procedure included the creation of Tables for assessing the difficulty of concepts in chemical technology problems and their interactivity, assessment of the numerical rating of cognitive complexity of the analyzed tasks, and conducting of research. Research included 50 students. Data were collected with the test of knowledge which was used for the assessment of students´ achievements and invested mental effort. The validity of this procedure was confirmed by a series of correlation analyses where statistically significant values of correlation coefficients were obtained among the examined variables: students' achievements, invested mental effort and cognitive complexity. The largest contribution of this procedure is that it is designed to show an objective value of the cognitive complexity of tasks in the domain of chemical technology. Good estimation of the numerical values of cognitive complexity can help teachers to better predict students' achievement, and at the same time to take care to avoid cognitive load.

Reviewing the history of media literacy education might help us to identify how "creating media" as an approach can contribute to fostering knowledge, understanding technical issues, and to establishing a critical attitude towards technology and data. In a society where digital devices and services are omnipresent and decisions are increasingly based on data, critical analysis must penetrate beyond the "outer shell" of machines -- their inter"faces" -- through the technology itself, and the data, and algorithms, which make these devices and services function. Because technology and data constitute the basis of all communication and collaboration, media literate individuals must in the future also have a sound understanding of technology and data literacy. This article examines the relevance of this broader definition of literacy and delivers a forward-looking defense of media literacy education in schools. It also posits the thesis that the digital transformation represents a challenge, which is confronting society, politics, and education alike.

The article presents the integrated course "The History of Science and Technology" developed for the students of pedagogical universities, majoring in physics, mathematics, and computer sciences. The authors highlight the effective forms, methods and means of teaching the course. The qualitative research methods included observations, conversations with students, verbal and written surveys regarding course effectiveness; the quantitative methods applied testing of students' progress. 56 students from Poltava V. G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University studying the course "The History of Science and Technology" and 53 students from National Pedagogical Dragomanov University attending the traditional courses, such as "The History of Mathematics", "The History of Physics", "The History of Computer Science" were involved in the experiment. The results show that important components for organising science history teaching and future pedagogical activities for students are assessment, developing and using teaching aids, and solving problems referring to history. The survey of teachers showed that the effectiveness of studying the course is mostly influenced by 3 main factors: enhancing students' educational and cognitive activity in the process of introducing new material (76%); solving problems referring to history during lectures, seminars and doing homework (62%); doing individual tasks by students (56%). The efficiency of the course "The History of Science and Technology" is achieved through: revising previously studied material at the beginning of the lecture; introducing problem-based learning; team teaching; individual tasks, summative assessment. The course "The History of Science and Technology" provides students with integrated knowledge about the development of science as well as the readiness to use historical information in future pedagogical activities in the conditions of STEM-education.

The objective of this work is to support our colleagues in building classroom rapport. We share our experiences transitioning an in-class graduate team-based engineering entrepreneurship course to a virtual classroom in Spring 2020. These experiences are placed in the context of fundamental research in rapport-building and online education. In our course, where engineering students must shift out of their comfort zone and interview stakeholders, we demonstrate the importance of establishing rapport to maintain open communication channels for meaningful discussions. The enduring elements of classroom rapport include instructor openness, clear communication/guidelines, and usage of a web-based learning management system.

The aim of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Nanotechnology Awareness Scale (NAI) in Turkish culture. The study group consists of 624 biology, physics and chemistry teachers working in secondary schools in Antalya, Denizli, Burdur and Ankara. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were conducted in order to determine its structural validity. Cronbach-alpha and stratified-alpha coefficient values were calculated for the reliability of the sub-dimensions and the whole of the scale, respectively. In EFA, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was found to be 0.92 and the Bartlett Test result (912 91 = 6519.27, p <0.00) was found significant. In addition, in original scale, a two-factor structure was found. This two factors solution explains 59.192% of the total variance. In CFA, factor structure of the scale was tested for two-factor solution as it was designed. According to the findings, it was found that the scale, containing 14 items with two sub-dimensions, had sufficient goodness of fit indices such as X[superscript 2]/sd =1.344, RMSEA = 0.07, GFI = 0.97, CFI = 0.97, NFI = 0.90 and AGFI = 0.83. These goodness of fit indices shows that we have good model-data fit. The Stratified-alpha coefficient was found as 0.942 for the whole scale. Cronbach alpha coefficient was found as 0.935 and 0.805 for the awareness sub-dimension and exposure sub-dimension, respectively. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the Turkish version of the scale can be used as a valid and reliable measurement tool.