Swati-Mehrotra-Ph.-D-Thesis.Pdf
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Introducing Indian middle school students to collaboration and communication centred design and technology education: A focus on socio-cultural and gender aspects A Thesis Submitted to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Science Education by Swati Mehrotra Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai July, 2008 DECLARATION This thesis is a presentation of my original research work. Wherever contributions of others are involved, every effort is made to indicate this clearly, with due reference to the literature, and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussions. The work was done under the guidance of Dr Sugra Chunawala, at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. [Swati Mehrotra] In my capacity as supervisor of the candidate’s thesis, I certify that the above statements are true to the best of my knowledge. [Sugra Chunawala] Date: iii I dedicate this work to Sensei Ikeda v A CD accompanies this thesis. The CD has Portable Document Format (PDF) version of the thesis along with some video clips. In order to view the thesis with the video clips following system requirements are needed: Acrobat Reader 8.0 and above. If you do not already have this Acrobat reader, you can download a free reader at Adobe's website (http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html) Quick time player or Real media player. If you do not have quick time player installed in your system, you can download a free player at (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/). Real time player can be downloaded free from (http://www.real.com) vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of any dissertation work such as this is the work of many people. I was fortunate to work with them and learn from them. I thank my thesis advisor Dr Sugra Chunawala, for being an inspiring teacher, intellectual critic, and above all an exemplary mentor. Her guidance helped me create clarity out of confusion. I owe a debt of gratitude to her and thank her for accommodating to my various working styles. A special thank goes to Prof Chitra Natarajan, who has been almost a co-guide for this work. I thank her for her unwavering encouragement, many hours of stimulating discussions and insightful advice. I learned a great deal from her. I am grateful to Prof Arvind Kumar, Director HBCSE and Prof H.C. Pradhan, Dean HBCSE for providing me an opportunity to work in the area of my choice, their constant interest in the project and many constructive discussions throughout the dissertation period. I also acknowledge the financial support given by Sarojini Damodaran fellowship to spend time at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg. Faculty members of HBCSE have always been kind to give comments on our work and I take this opportunity to thank each of them for their encouragement and support. I benefited immensely from my collaboration with Ritesh Khunyakari. I would like to express my warm and sincere gratitude to him for all his help and friendly support. I was fortunate enough to have him to discuss ideas from the time they came to me till the time they actually took shape or got abandoned. His critical comments and arguments have been very useful. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him. I wish to put on records my thanks to Prof Marc J. de Vries from Eindhoven University, Netherlands, who gave us a broad initial overview of the field of design and technology education and helped us consolidate our hazy ideas. Along with him, Prof Leonnie Rennie, Prof Richard Kimbell, Prof Alister Jones and Prof Nancy Brickhouse have helped us at critical times and sent us relevant literature, whenever we needed. My heartfelt appreciation also goes to Prof Mark Sanders, Dr J.G. Wells and Dr Carol Brandt, all from Virginia Tech university for giving us their valuable time and suggestions during our visit to the university. vii I would like to thank Prof P.V.Dias and the multilingualism project team for motivating us to initiate work in the area of design and technology and also for providing us a platform to present our work and discuss our ideas with a variety of people from different backgrounds. I am thankful to the principals and teachers of the schools involved in the study who gave us the privilege of learning from students. I also want to extend my strong appreciation to the students who participated in the study. Many thanks to the administrative staff at HBCSE whose support made it more than a temporary place of study for students. Smita Burli and Sumana Amin deserve a special mention. I wish to thank Aruna and Nagesh for helping us sort out our voluminous survey data and also in translation of the questionnaires to Marathi. Wrushali, Srikant and Sunita (visiting teacher) for taking out their valuable time to transcribe our data. I thank them for their co-operation and willingness to help us out in time of dire need. I am indebted to my colleagues at HBCSE, for providing a stimulating and fun environment in which to learn and grow. I am especially grateful to Dr Beena Choksi for reading numerous drafts of our papers and giving us critical feedback. Manoj Nair was particularly helpful with video shooting during the trials and also sorted many problems related to graphics and computers during the thesis work. I wish to thank Rakhi and Abhijeet for their camaraderie, entertainment and the caring that they provided. I would also like to thank the University of Connecticut, Stamford campus for making university library facilities available to me during the final stages of my work. I would particularly like to thank Dr Ingrid Semaan and Dr Shelly Roseman in this regard. On a personal level, I am grateful to my grandfather for instilling the value of education and learning in me at a young age. It continues to bring me great pleasure. I am thankful to my parents and in-laws for their patience. I would like to thank my aunt in Andheri and her family for supporting me and being my soundboard while I was doing my thesis. Special appreciation goes to my husband, Ajay for understanding that this thesis would consume my life and time for a while. Thank you for supporting me and allowing me the time to achieve my dream. I feel privileged to share my life with someone who cherishes learning as much as I do. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Page no. Declaration iii Dedication v Acknowledgements vii Table of Contents ix List of Tables xiv List of Figures xvi List of Boxes ix Chapter 1: Introduction 1 1.1 Background and motivation 1 1.1.1 Antecedents of Design and Technology Education in the 3 Indian context 1.2 Gender and technology 4 1.3 Collaboration and communication for inclusive technology 6 education 1.4 Our study 7 1.4.1 Background of the study 9 1.5 Rationale of the study 10 1.6 Theoretical framework of the study 12 1.7 Research objective and Research questions 14 1.8 Definitions of the terms 15 1.9 Overview of the thesis 16 1.10 Summary 18 Chapter 2: Review of literature 19 2.1 Introduction 19 2.2 Students’ attitudes and ideas about technology 20 2.2.1 Why do we need to know students’ ideas about 21 technology? 2.2.2 Measuring students’ attitudes and ideas about 22 technology 2.2.3 Students’ ideas about technology: results from a few 25 studies 2.2.4 Studies done in the Indian context 28 2.2.5 Identifying girls’ and boys’ ideas about technology 29 2.2.6 Conclusion 32 2.3 Communication 32 2.3.1 Communication in the context of education 34 2.3.2 Communication in the context of technology education 35 2.3.3 Importance of talk in peer groups 40 2.3.4 Gender and communication 42 ix 2.3.5 Analyzing verbal communication 44 2.3.6 Conclusion 51 2.4 Collaborative learning 52 2.4.1 What is considered as collaborative? 53 2.4.2 Theories of CL 55 2.4.3 Research studies on CL in educational contexts 65 2.4.4 CL in the context of technology education 67 2.4.5 Roadblocks to implementation 70 2.4.6 The way ahead 71 2.4.7 Conclusion 72 2.5 Gender and Technology Education 73 2.5.1 Relationship between gender, science and technology 74 2.5.2 Under-representation of women in Science and 75 Technology 2.5.3 Factors in school that effect enrolment of girls in science 78 and technology related courses 2.5.4 Feminist perspective explaining the lack of women in 82 science and technology 2.5.5 Efforts being made to include women in technology 85 education 2.5.6 Conclusion 89 Chapter 3: Using pictures and interviews to elicit Indian 91 students’ understanding of technology 3.1 Introduction 91 3.2 Objectives of the survey 92 3.3 Methodology 92 3.3.1 Tools used for the survey 93 3.3.2 Sample 96 3.4 Results 97 3.4.1 Technology-as-objects 97 3.4.2 Technology-as-activities 99 3.5 Analysis 101 3.5.1 Gender and technology 107 3.6 Conclusions and Implications 113 Chapter 4: Methodology: Development and trials of D&T 117 education units 4.1 Introduction and Rationale 117 4.2 Design and Technology project 127 4.3 Sample description 129 4.3.1 Socio-economic background of students from the urban 133 setting 4.3.2 Socio-economic background of students from the rural 134 setting 4.4 General overview of the structure and implementation of 135 x D&T units 4.5 Unit 1: Bag making 137 4.5.1 Learning objectives of the bag-making unit 137 4.5.2 Structure and Implementation 137 4.6 Unit 2: Making a working model of a windmill that could lift 148 given weights 4.6.1 Learning objectives of the windmill unit 148 4.6.2 Structure and Implementation 149 4.7 Unit 3: Making a puppet and collectively putting up a puppet 158 show 4.7.1 Learning objectives of the