Technological Literacy: Assessment and Measurement of Learning Gains

John Krupczak; Kate A Disney

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Conference: 2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Publication Date: June 23, 2013
Start Date: June 23, 2013
End Date: June 26, 2013
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: NSF Grantees' Poster Session
Tagged Topic: NSF Grantees Poster Session
Page Count: 11
Page Numbers: 23.1160.1 - 23.1160.11
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--22545
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/22545
Download Count: 394

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Paper Authors

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John Krupczak Hope College

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Dr. John Krupczak is a professor of Engineering at Hope College in Holland, Mich. He is a former chair of the ASEE Technological Literacy Division and a former chair of the ASEE Liberal Education Division. Dr. Krupczak was a CASEE senior fellow from 2008 to 2010.

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Kate A Disney Mission College

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Kate Disney teaches engineering at Mission College in Santa Clara, California. She has been involved in teaching technology literacy at both Mission College and Cabrillo College in Aptos, CA.

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Abstract

Technological Literacy: Assessment and Measurement of Learning GainsAmerica’s standard of living and way of life depend upon technology. It is vital both for bothempowerment of the individual and national economic growth that informed citizens have anunderstanding of what technology is, how it works, how it is created, how it shapes society, andhow society influences technological development. Despite the centrality of technology to ourwell-being, there is little research measuring the degree to which undergraduate students, out-of-school adults, and other adults outside of the K-12 setting possess a broad understanding of theprinciples, products, and processes of technology. While formalized measurement is lacking, asignificant number of faculty members have been teaching courses on technological literacy andassessing student learning in their individual classes. The work reported here will describe theresults of efforts to collect and refine these existing assessments used by individual faculty intostandard assessment tools that can be broadly applied. These assessment tools were then used byfaculty to assess technological literacy learning outcomes. The combined results begin to create abroadly-based characterization and measurement of the technological literacy of Americanundergraduates and the potential effectiveness of technological literacy courses. Whileassessment of learning gains within courses that form part of an engineering major have beendeveloped under ABET EC 2000, the means of assessing the technological understanding of themajority of undergraduates who are not engineering students is yet to be systematicallyaddressed. The proposed work begins an effort to create some assessment tools appropriate foruse with the large number of students who are not majoring in one of the STEM disciplines.Some initial data is available on the application of these assessment tools to a population ofstudents who are enrolled in technological literacy courses across a range of institutions. Thesepreliminary results help to establish the learning gains of non-STEM students who participate intechnology and engineering literacy classes. This work was supported by the National ScienceFoundation through award DUE – 11xxxxxx.

Citation
Format

Krupczak, J., & Disney, K. A. (2013, June), Technological Literacy: Assessment and Measurement of Learning Gains Paper presented at 2013 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Atlanta, Georgia. 10.18260/1-2--22545

TY  - CPAPER
AB  -          Technological Literacy: Assessment and Measurement of Learning GainsAmerica’s standard of living and way of life depend upon technology. It is vital both for bothempowerment of the individual and national economic growth that informed citizens have anunderstanding of what technology is, how it works, how it is created, how it shapes society, andhow society influences technological development. Despite the centrality of technology to ourwell-being, there is little research measuring the degree to which undergraduate students, out-of-school adults, and other adults outside of the K-12 setting possess a broad understanding of theprinciples, products, and processes of technology. While formalized measurement is lacking, asignificant number of faculty members have been teaching courses on technological literacy andassessing student learning in their individual classes. The work reported here will describe theresults of efforts to collect and refine these existing assessments used by individual faculty intostandard assessment tools that can be broadly applied. These assessment tools were then used byfaculty to assess technological literacy learning outcomes. The combined results begin to create abroadly-based characterization and measurement of the technological literacy of Americanundergraduates and the potential effectiveness of technological literacy courses. Whileassessment of learning gains within courses that form part of an engineering major have beendeveloped under ABET EC 2000, the means of assessing the technological understanding of themajority of undergraduates who are not engineering students is yet to be systematicallyaddressed. The proposed work begins an effort to create some assessment tools appropriate foruse with the large number of students who are not majoring in one of the STEM disciplines.Some initial data is available on the application of these assessment tools to a population ofstudents who are enrolled in technological literacy courses across a range of institutions. Thesepreliminary results help to establish the learning gains of non-STEM students who participate intechnology and engineering literacy classes. This work was supported by the National ScienceFoundation through award DUE – 11xxxxxx.
AU  - John Krupczak
AU  - Kate A Disney
CY  - Atlanta, Georgia
DA  - 2013/06/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Technological Literacy: Assessment and Measurement of Learning Gains 
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/22545
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--22545
ER  -