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The article discusses the problem of using the project method in the training of students of a technological profile in a higher education institution. Particular attention is paid to the project method using in teaching the discipline "Technological Practicum". The analysis of the latest researchers show that project activity in the process of training specialists of technological and other profiles is considered by scientists as the most important method of successful formation of professional competence of future specialists. The author has singled out the such types of projects: research, creative, game, informational, practice-oriented. It was concluded that using the project method in the training of students of a technological profile in a higher education institution is aimed at socially significant psychophysical, moral and intellectual development, strengthening their aptitudes and abilities, their essential strengths and vocation; involvement of students in successful work and the system of universal moral values; formation and satisfaction of their activity and cognitive requests and needs; creating conditions for self-determination, creative self-expression and continuous education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to gauge the degree of awareness of the VALPOLY Electronics Technology students on E-waste management. A total of 188 VALPOLY EST students enrolled in the academic year 2022-2023 were purposively selected to participate in the research. An adapted and modified survey questionnaire was used to assess VALPOLY EST students' level of awareness and the challenges they faced in managing their e-waste. Frequency counts, percentages, means, the Mann-Whitney U test, and the Kruskal Wallis test were used for statistical analysis and data handling. All questions were rated on a 4-point Likert scale with a 0.5 level of significance. Based on the findings, "Electronic Components" is the most common e-waste generated by the 188 VALPOLY EST students, while "CCTV", "Oven, Heaters, Cookware, Blender", "Washing Machines", and "Printers" are the least common e-waste generated during their technical training in their technical subjects. The majority of students also preferred "Resell to junkshops as scraps" as an e-waste disposal strategy, while "Take to the collection Centre" was the least preferred. The EST students' level of awareness in managing e-wastes was assessed with a grand mean of 2.62, showing that the VALPOLY EST students are "Aware" of managing their e-wastes. There is no significant difference in the degree of understanding of VALPOLY EST students on e-waste management based on age or gender, but there is a significant difference based on year level. The assessment of the VALPOLY EST students' concerns in managing their e-waste received a grand mean of 3.42, suggesting that the VALPOLY EST students "Strongly Agree" that there are challenges in managing their e-waste. Input through a set of recommendations was made to strengthen the institution's policy on controlling and treating waste and electronic waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This action research was conducted to determine the effect of interactive learning techniques in the motivational learning process among Bachelor of Science in Industrial Technology (BSIT) students of Cavite State University -- CCAT Campus. The study utilized mixed research designs in the conduct of the study. Results showed an increase in students' cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains after the intervention. This action research recommends utilizing coordinated-tandem teaching to maximize teaching delivery and address a huge volume of students and orienting the students to ICT/multimedia equipment to maximize online-lecture classes among BSIT Students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Practicing engineers and undergraduate engineering and technology students seek and use information differently within the research and design process. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted by librarians at Purdue University and information specialists at Caterpillar Inc. to analyze self-reported information habits and challenges of both user populations. The authors created surveys containing similar questions for each user group, using a framework that asked participants to think about their information needs and use during a recent engineering project. The survey questions discerned users' confidence in their information abilities, and their preferences and barriers for finding and using information. The results of this study reveal differences between students and engineers and are informative for both academic and corporate librarians. Key findings affirm previous research that novices are more confident in their abilities than experts. Additionally, the findings suggest undergraduates prefer quick, easy to digest content like online videos and news, while engineers are more likely to learn by consulting a colleague or other subject expert, and through reading journals and trade literature. While students rated themselves as more confident information users, engineers reported working in a more complex information landscape, which includes internal document management systems and numerous places to look for technical information. Findings within this paper can inform the development of information literacy curricula that better parallels the corporate environment, and can give corporate librarians insight into how recent graduates may expect to interact with information in a new work environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the activities and the most significant achievements of the Science Studies Research Unit at the Institute for the History of Science PAS in 2021. The article focuses on the specifi city of the Unit, which proposes both theoretical reflection and practical solutions in the broadly understood field of Science-of-Science and Science and Technology Studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much research has been done on Critical Thinking (CT) skills, the disposition toward CT has not been adequately investigated. The paucity of literature regarding technology teachers' disposition toward CT is particularly problematic as these teachers have to assist learners with the designing and making of solutions (artefacts) to problems that are often ill structured. Solving these problems is complicated and involves critical thinking. Helping learners to find solutions to these problems, therefore, requires teachers to be willing to think critically and encourage critical thinking in the classroom. Profiling these teachers' dispositions could reveal their inclination to employ critical thinking, and give an indication of the likelihood that they may foster CT skills and the disposition toward CT in the classroom. In addition, such profiling could provide a descriptive baseline for further investigation into the relationship that seems to exist between CT dispositions and professions. This study, therefore, aimed to investigate technology teachers' disposition to think critically in terms of their habits of mind. Quantitative research, using an online survey, was employed in this study. A Likert Scale instrument comprising 42 statements, derived from Facione's (Informal Log 20(1): 61–84, 2000) seven habits of mind, was administered to South African technology teachers. The participants had to rate their level of agreement with each statement on a six-point scale. The research findings revealed that this sample had a positive disposition toward CT. The habits of mind that ranked the strongest were CT Self-confidence and Inquisitiveness, while Mature Judgment ranked the weakest (although still in a positive direction). Further research is needed to establish which dispositions should be emphasised in order to address the dispositional needs in technology education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A central issue when measuring students' attitudes toward an object is the children's understanding of that object, in this case, technology. Studies have shown that schoolchildren often describe technology narrowly as different kinds of technological objects; more specifically, modern electrical objects. This may mean that we have been measuring students' attitudes toward modern technological objects for more than 30 years. This study intends to research what other aspects students potentially describe, when describing technology, and how the descriptions can be implemented in attitudes toward technology research. To visualize and analyze different aspects of technology, Carl Mitcham's philosophical framework of the manifestations of technology is used. The deductive method used for analysis quantifies students' descriptions of technology, for use in attitude, and other quantitative, studies. In this study, descriptions of technology and technology education from 164 students (aged 12–15) are analyzed, classified and quantified within Mitcham's typology (technology as Object–Activities–Knowledge–Volition). The student descriptions are compared to the typology and students score a point for every one of the four aspects of technology they describe. The sum of aspects in the description is named The Mitcham Score. The results of this study show that students can describe technology in a broad way using all four aspects of Mitcham's typology. In line with previous studies, the most common way is to describe technology as objects and activities using the objects. Technological knowledge has not been in focus in previous studies of student descriptions. In this study, 44.5% of the students mention technological knowledge in their descriptions of technology. Measurement using the Mitcham Score provides a method to study both students' concepts of technology and the factors that might affect this. The Mitcham Score is potentially one more factor to use in analyzing students' attitudinal profiles. The method is sufficiently reliable and enables a broad understanding of students' attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we evaluate the manner in which we at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at the Delft University of Technology encourage the development of the capacity of reflection among our undergraduate students. First we explore the concept of reflection in relation to respectively experiential/reflective learning, reflection in/on action, reflection in higher education and reflection in design education. Next we describe our research object, our Bachelor course in Academic Design Reflection. Two research questions are at hand: (1) does the level of reflection increase during our course and (2) Can the operationalisation in our questionnaire of the definitions of reflection derived from theory statistically be confirmed? We measured and processed statistically the level of reflection of 100 students in 3 of their papers on their design. Results show there is a significant slight increase of this level among the three papers. Results also show that our model of classification is not statistically confirmed in the data. We conclude with a discussion on the implications for further research and for design education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the co‐occurring realization of two sociophonetic variables within a style—the LOT vowel in English and word‐initial /l/—to explore the link between articulatory setting and stylistic practice. At an arts‐focused high school in the San Francisco Bay Area, the curricular and social practices of students in the technical theatre department centre around manual labour. Ethnographic analysis demonstrates that "tech" constitutes a locally enregistered persona, informed by tech students' positioning as working‐class subjects through their bodily, sartorial, and technological practices. Tech students also produce higher and more rounded variants of LOT, and more velarized productions of /l/, than their non‐tech peers, and I suggest that articulatory setting is at play in the cohesive indexicality of these variants. I advocate for the continued exploration of co‐occurring sociolinguistic variables which treat the body as a broader stylistic context, and propose that studies of co‐occurring features focus on the ideological processes by which combinations of variables come to index thematic styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main emphasis of the study is on the academic performance and the stress management in applied science among the students of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Sindh University Campus Dadu. What is the level of stress on the academic success of the students? How does it affect their lifestyle and health? This is what the research study covers to counteract the general stress among the students. The purpose of the study is to inquire and bring light to measure and check the present stress among students of the university. While doing the research a quantitative method was applied for collecting and analyzing the data. The Questionnaires were distributed among different students for this purpose. Innumerable factors of stress were found in the results and the factors were grouped in four categories which are;-Environmental Factors, Academic Factors, and Personal Factors. In environmental factors, the stress was about the happening the fate in the future. The students were found worried about future that what would happen about their fate? How it will happen? What is about to happen? When they came into contact with the new people it raised their stress. Also the class workload was the main reason for the stress among the students regarding academic factors. When the students were experiencing the workload of the class the group of the students came under stress. The last factor was a personal factor which was mainly due to the financial problem among the students. The stress of all categories can be managed through stress management courses and doing different extracurricular activities which will help to divert the attention of the students on different occasions. This study has drawn significant conclusions and Suggests further measures for practitioners which could help other to manage stress. The limitations are also mentioned so that those who are conducting research for the similar cases can extract better results and ways of curbing stress. A survey questionnaire was designed to collect the response from students, the five-point Likert scale was used from strongly agree to strongly disagree. SPSS-21 version was used to interpret the results through different quantitative techniques like descriptive, regression, and correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learners today need more than the core subjects offered at school to be successful in the twenty-first-century. By involving technology student teachers in activities that are authentic to technological practice, as teachers, they should be able to provide stimulating and relevant learning for learners (Turnbull in Int J Technol Des Educ 12(1):23-40, 2002), which include twenty-first-century skills that enable them to develop minds and responsibility for the future (Snape and Fox-Turnbull in Int J Technol Des Educ 23:51-68, 2013). Previously, a fourfold set of criteria, developed by Ankiewicz (Proceedings of the PATT 29 conference, Marseille, France, 2015b), was applied to the first four semester modules of the academic major Engineering Graphics and Technology Education. It is found that there was a strong emphasis on conceptual knowledge with little time spent on practising procedural knowledge. Ankiewicz (2015b) anticipated that the final module might address these concerns as it was designed as a project-based module aimed at aspects of authentic technological practice. Students are expected to solve real-world technological problems. However, after the first year of offering the module the module's success is unclear. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which the module succeeds in developing technology student teachers' procedural knowledge. A qualitative study (Merriam in Qualitative research and case study applications in education, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1998) was conducted in which students' portfolios and open-ended questionnaires were analysed. Indications are that the module contributed positively to enhancing the procedural knowledge of the students enrolled for this module. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The educational significance of eliciting students' implicit theories of intelligence is well established with the majority of this work focussing on theories regarding entity and incremental beliefs. However, a second paradigm exists in the prototypical nature of intelligence for which to view implicit theories. This study purports to instigate an investigation into students' beliefs concerning intellectual behaviours through the lens of prototypical definitions within STEM education. To achieve this, the methodology designed by Sternberg et al. (J Pers Soc Psychol 41(1):37-55, 1981) was adopted with surveys being administered to students of technology education requiring participants to describe characteristics of intelligent behaviour. A factor analytic approach including exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling was taken in analysing the data to determine the underlying constructs which the participants viewed as critical in their definition of intelligence. The findings of this study illustrate that students of technology education perceive intelligence to be multifaceted, comprising of three factors including social, general and technological competences. Implications for educational practice are discussed relative to these findings. While initially this study focuses on the domain of technology education, a mandate for further work in other disciplines is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perceptions and attitudes of pupils towards technology have been researched for just over three decades. Recently, following an extensive review of the available literature, Ankiewicz (in: De Vries (ed) Handbook of technology education, Springer International Handbooks of Education, 2016. 10.1007/978-3-319-38889-2_43-1) provided an overview of the current state of research, in a chapter in the Springer Handbook of Technology Education. However, due to length restrictions the chapter had to be concise and thus focused primarily on the mainstream instruments and their derivatives. More detailed descriptions of the perceptions and attitudes of students as well as discussions of unconventional and non-related instruments therefore had to be omitted. Consequently, the purpose of this article is to extend the chapter concerned by providing a more extensive and nuanced review of the total substantive body of knowledge that has been generated in just over three decades. The following research question underpinned the literature review: How may the existing research and subsequent findings be systematised into a more rigorous theoretical framework that may assist scholars in navigating their way through the current research on the perceptions and attitudes of students towards technology? In addition to the previous findings made and conclusions drawn in the chapter, it was found that such a theoretical framework should be informed by the following guiding insights: viewpoints concerning the construct of attitudes towards technology, as well as measuring such attitudes; the mainstream instruments in The Pupils' Attitudes Towards Technology (PATT) studies and their derivatives, as well as problematic aspects associated with these; unconventional, PATT-related instruments; new, non-related instruments for ascertaining students' attitudes and concepts; the general research findings on students' attitudes; means that may positively develop students' attitudes; and unidimensional versus multidimensional studies studying the effect of all characteristics or determinants of all aspects of learners' attitudes. Such a rigorous theoretical framework may serve as a valuable resource for future researchers embarking on this area of research, as it provides a synopsis that may assist in enhancing an understanding of research that has been done and work that needs to be done in order to contribute to developing new knowledge in the field of design, technology, and engineering education. It also indicates gaps in this research area, notably in researching the behavioural component of attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), and despite attempts by governments and other agencies to address the issue, females remain significantly underrepresented. Research has shown that parents play a significant role in shaping the aspirations of children with regard to higher education. However, there is a paucity of research exploring the particular influence of parents on the aspirations of children towards STEM. Drawing on data from a four-year mixed-method longitudinal study conducted with students (N = 6,492) in Years 3 to 12 from the Australian state of New South Wales, we examine parent data (survey and focus groups) for those students who expressed an interest in pursuing STEM studies and careers. Students who expressed an interest in STEM were typically high achieving and just over 90% of their parents had aspirations for them to attend university--although this was proportionally higher for sons than for daughters. Even when parents created a supportive environment, there was little evidence indicating that girls were encouraged to pursue STEM. This analysis highlights the complexity and importance of parental influences on student aspirations. When exploring strategies aimed at encouraging students to consider pathways into STEM, we argue that educational institutions should consider ways of actively involving parents in order to counter stereotypical gendered views of STEM and to expand the range of possibilities considered by both girls and boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amongst the participants of a qualitative study of Black female students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) were two individuals who were born on the African continent. These students moved to the United States at a young age and are now United States citizens--one pursuing a graduate degree and the other an undergraduate degree, both in a STEM field. This brief case study will explore the thoughts of the two students with regard to how they, despite being typically underrepresented in STEM in the United States, (1) describe their experiences as college students; (2) come to view themselves in the African- American community in the United States; and (3) compare to Black students who were born in the United States or are international students from Africa. Using their own words, this article explains how their African heritage has shaped their development as STEM students and solidified their place in a STEM education program in the United States. These students are uniquely positioned to understand both an African and African-American perspective. Their insights can help to illuminate how the United States can attract and retain African as well as African- American students in the fields of STEM, and extend that knowledge to other variations of ethnicity and experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. Two 20-year longitudinal studies that were conducted in the United States surveyed adolescents on their educational and career aspirations. Interviews were conducted with a special subset of women when they were in their mid-30s and 40s to understand their decisions to (1) aspire to STEM careers if they initially had non-STEM career aspirations, or (2) leave or not pursue a STEM career if they initially had STEM career aspirations. Findings from semi-structured interviews uncovered three themes that participants used in explaining their career decisions: (1) the importance of family and work/life balance; (2) the importance of teachers and classroom experiences; and (3) interest in, and perceived value of, STEM subjects. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to initiatives to encourage more women to pursue and persist in STEM careers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to current discussions and knowledge concerning gender differences in the future plans and career choices of postgraduate students. It explores and compares the future plans of male and female postgraduate students across different areas of study at a large public university in Pakistan. The sample consisted of 365 postgraduate students (235 of which were female) with a mean age of 22.45 years. The students were enrolled in five different departments: the Department of Gender Studies (DGS); the Department of Mathematics (DM); the Department of Business Education (DBE); the Centre of English Language Teaching and Linguistics (CELTL); and the Institute of Business and Information Technology (IBIT). A regression analysis of one structured response question concerning the importance of various activities after gaining a postgraduate degree revealed that gaining employment was the most important activity that these students wanted to pursue. The current study did not show any significant gender effect on the importance of various future activities, such as employment, studying further, and getting married, although there were some differences noted across areas of study. A thematic analysis of the students' responses to two open-ended questions about the reasons for their preference for, and choice of, a future career revealed reasons such as personal interest, respect, and the suitability of working hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Establishing college-industry collaboration is vital for the success of undergraduate students in engineering and technology programs. Engagement with local industry partners is essential to teach these students applied and hands-on concepts such as lean manufacturing and facility planning. Instructors are required to build meaningful relationships with industry partners so that students can benefit from active learning. Through industry partnerships, students have an opportunity to learn in various ways such as by visiting industrial sites, conducting projects with local industries, and having guest speakers discuss the numerous aspects of their business. Such activities help students become more immersed in their field of study, gain hands-on experience, and address real-world challenges as they transition from college to productive careers within industry. Instructors have a very important role in successfully establishing college-industry partnerships, which can be a challenging and time-consuming task. Such relationships are more difficult to establish when instructors are new to a particular region. This paper focuses on the best practices required to establish industrial partnerships, the importance of leveraging support systems available at instructors' academic institutions, and how to establish relationships with local professional organizations and industry partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very few articles exist that document technical communication in Hungary. My Fulbright research reveals two general points: First, technical communication pedagogy stresses correct use of professional terms and phrases in technical translations or technical articles for fictional audiences. Second, it does not emphasize the importance of specifying target audiences in students' work; similarly, Hungarian companies, perhaps driven by oral culture in communication, do not target at any specific audiences in written communication. In this respect, education and practice seems to shape each other. More research is needed to provide more elements to help us understand technical communication in Hungary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how can technology and engineering teachers develop technological literacy in all students. Topics discussed include ways for teacher can gather information to better understand students, three key parts of cultural pedagogy such as the need for students to experience academic success, the need to develop and/or maintain cultural competence and the need to develop critical consciousness, and the focus by the University of Iowa on land and aquatic transportation.

This article provides a review of two paradigms of education and the application of each in a manufacturing quality control course for engineering technology (ET) students. The most common paradigm of education used in quality-focused courses is teaching-centered. This traditional method has contributed to students' perception of quality (e.g., quality control, statistical process control, total quality management), as a dry subject to learn compared to other core and/or elective courses in their plans of study. This case study describes the creation and implementation of a manufacturing quality control curriculum that is learningcentered. Based on student feedback, this approach increased ET students' self-reported satisfaction of the course, lab, and instructor, as compared to a teaching-centered course. Additionally, the students' engagement and dynamic involvement in the learning activities increased, due in part to project-based learning. In order to enhance further adoption of studentcentered instructional techniques in qualityfocused courses, the authors have shared all project-based learning resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing appropriate language materials for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) is an essential component of its practice. The paper addresses the issue of adapting authentic technical texts to make them more suitable as well as attractive for a particular type of a learner. Firstly, the main problems teachers usually face when designing ESP courses have been discussed. Then, the author gives some suggestions as how to select and evaluate authentic texts highlighting the principles that could be taken into consideration when designing the English language course for technology students. After that, the author presents the way how authentic and highly technical texts on advanced machining processes that are being studied and researched at the Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies were selected, adapted and consequently integrated in the form of online course into the existing Moodle platform of the Technical University. Finally, several extracts from the online ESP course showing how specialized authentic texts can be modified to serve the interaction purpose have been presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three short exercises are presented that introduce certain functional aspects of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. The objective is to provide students with an introduction to the functionality that is incorporated in a typical ERP software solution that supports an evaluation of internal controls and segregation of duties as part of the Information Technology Audit (IT Audit) function. We have developed three hands-on step-bystep exercises using a widely implemented ERP system (i.e., SAP) and provide access to SAP on the cloud so that students can learn how to verify internal controls embedded in the system and identify control weaknesses such as a lack of segregation of duties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutions are at a watershed regarding the means that they use to provide financial and insurance services to enterprises and consumers. FinTech, technology solutions and startups that have disrupted and/or improved the way finance, banking and insurance industries do business, has become one of the largest growth industries in the worlds of finance and technology. |sEj>]Blockchain has gained great attention, investment, and development within FinTech because it addresses two of the riskiest aspects of life and business on the Internet: transactions and trust. There are exciting career and advancement opportunities for business and technology students, faculty, and universities to equip the next generation of FinTech architects and innovators. Recently, some universities have begun to develop programs, courses, and groups to support FinTech innovation and education. In this paper, we review FinTech and Blockchain. We conclude by reviewing some of the approaches used by universities to teach FinTech and Blockchain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the life of students of Tomsk Technological Institute of Emperor Nicholas II. The detailed study of the issue is based on technology students’ social class and financial state data. The majority of students of the first higher technical education institution in Siberia are reported to have suffered financial difficulties, resulting in domestic problems. However, despite these factors and single cases of lax behaviour, technology students devoted most of their time spent to training sessions and scientific research.

Facilitating student growth and development in diagnosing and solving technical problems remains a challenge for technology and engineering educators. With funding from the National Science Foundation, this team of researchers developed a self-guided, computer-based instructional program to experiment with conceptual mapping as a treatment to improve undergraduate technology and engineering students' abilities to develop a plan of action when presented with real technical problems developed in collaboration with industrial partners. The pilot-testing and experimental portions of the project confirmed that the subjects found the training interesting and useful. However, the experimental data did not support the conclusion that the treatment caused an increase in diagnostic performance. Analysis of individual data demonstrated that for a portion of the sample, significant gains occurred. Qualitative analysis demonstrated that the majority of the students treated the experience as a trivial academic exercise, which seriously limited their efforts. A major step forward occurred in the ability to automatically compare student maps with the expert's reference map using a modified version of the similarity flooding algorithm. Student feedback was based on this automatic comparison. In all, the experience has encouraged the team to continue and expand the use of conceptual mapping as a tool for improving diagnostic and problem-solving skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study, conducted in Israel, examined how learning strategies and motivational orientations contributed to high school students’ sense of achievement in a massive open online course. The objective was to integrate an innovative teaching–learning strategy into the educational system that is based on online learning for students in subjects that are rich in knowledge and technology. The researchers used a motivated strategies learning questionnaire modified to fit the purpose of this study. In addition, the researchers built and used a sense of achievement index based on social pedagogy as a leading principle in the current learning model. Structural Equation Modeling path analysis results suggested that projects-based learning subjects had a significant positive impact on motivational orientations and learning strategies, and they in turn had a significant positive impact on students’ sense of achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article reports on the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) school discourse patterns. Topics discussed include graduates pursuing STEM careers; instructional practice, culture and discourse in STEM schools; and classroom dynamics in student outcomes. Also being discussed are the research questions in the analysis of discursive practices in science classrooms within STEM schools.

Many interesting research and design questions occur at the intersections of traditional disciplines, yet most coursework and research programs for undergraduate engineering students are focused on one discipline. This leads to underutilization of the potential in better preparing students through multidisciplinary projects. Identifying this opportunity to better prepare the engineering and technology students, this paper presents a multidisciplinary integrated research and design platform on tour guide robots. Through integration of electrical hardware, mechanical systems, design manufacture, and complex programming, the proposed work serves as an ideal platform through which students will be able to study a complex and integrated engineering system. Preliminary implementation of the proposed platform has led to numerous undergraduate research projects, capstone senior design projects, course improvements, publications in peer-reviewed conferences, and best student paper awards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research substantiates various forms of cooperative educational and scientific activities of pedagogical and technical students to increase their level of professional and major-based training. It demonstrates that inter-university cooperation provides the opportunities to re-construct the educational process into science and research and professionally oriented practice. The research has revealed the issues resulting in students’ cooperation efficiency within inter-university cooperation. The researchers have provided measures and techniques to solve the found problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the American Foundry Society (AFS)/Foundry Education Foundation (FEF) Student Technology Contest titled "Oxygen Control in the Copper Casting Process" held at a copper mill in 2017. Topics discussed include the separation of individual oxygen atoms, the adjustments to the furnace, and the prediction of the oxygen concentrations at the coil.

This paper describes a flipped and improved first-year digital circuits (DC) course that incorporates several active learning strategies. With the primary objective of increasing student interest and learning, an integrated instructional design framework is proposed to provide first-year engineering and technology students with practical knowledge of DC. The research presented here compares the effectiveness of the flipped course to the previous traditional course through a controlled experimental study. The improved effectiveness of the flipped course is confirmed through the significant increase in course content and significant improvements in students' performance and their perceptions of their learning experience. Preliminary results suggest that students' academic success, and their engagement and interest in engineering, can be enhanced by refinement of an integrated instructional design framework. The authors believe that this positive outcome is a result of alignment of online preview of lectures, face-to-face student/instructor and peer interactions, discussions, hands-on activities, combined with several active learning strategies infused into the class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study begins with a definition of technology provided by Carl Mitcham. It then goes on to evaluate this definition by applying some of Jacques Ellul's thinking, as well as that of Lewis Mumford. Some of Nietzsche's literary work is also used as a template through which to view Mitcham's claim. What impact might technology have on the human condition, and how might these philosophers help us to discern what that impact might be? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- This paper stems from a study which was conducted as a means to first, find out whether there is a gap between the secondary and tertiary education levels, second identify any existing gap in Science and Technology education, and third, examine the impact of the above upon students' creativity and innovativeness at university level. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach -- As such, a group of teachers and students at both secondary and tertiary levels were selected as the sample of the study. Questionnaires were administered to trained secondary school teachers and to university students. Interviews were also conducted to triangulate data. These enabled an analysis of the current situation in terms of students' engagement/creativity/innovativeness in Science and Technology at secondary and tertiary levels. Findings -- The findings reveal a problematic situation arising with respect to beliefs and what truly prevails in the education sector at secondary and tertiary levels. This study has revealed a number of salient issues related to the gap existing between the secondary and tertiary levels of education in Mauritius, with special bearing on creativity and innovation in Science and Technology. Research limitations/implications -- Only three institutions were involved, with a small sample of students, so that the findings cannot be generalised. Moreover, gender is a variable that has not been taken into consideration. Practical implications -- The study has proposed a number of recommendations to enable Mauritian students (at secondary and tertiary levels) to develop creativity and hopefully become innovators. This leads us to believe that the recommendations emerging from this study will be beneficial to various stakeholders who wish to understand the gap existing between secondary and tertiary education in Science and Technology education. Originality/value -- This study takes a case study approach adopting a mixture of interviews, surveys and observations to understand the research problems with regards to the younger generations need to be equipped with scientific and technological advances in acquiring knowledge, new sets of skills and values. Therefore, this study endeavours to document the perceptions of learners and faculty staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]