Några uppgifter som belyser elevers uppfattningar om vad som är teknik

Discussions about technological literacy have resulted in statements about the technological literate citizen who should recognize technology as something that permeates modern society and should be able to differentiate between nature (shaped by evolution) and technology (shaped by humans). Earlier studies show that pupils express rather limited views of technology, often as modern tools (computers) and isolated from human needs. In the light of these results we wondered if Swedish pupils differentiate between technology and nature, what they view as examples of technology and if they recognize technology as an old enterprise. Our study involved 150-200 pupils in school year 7-9 who answered three questions individually in writing. The results indicate that the pupils in our group differentiate between technology and nature but many of them express limited views of what technology is. Common everyday products are regarded as technology by a minority. Furthermore several pupils seemed to regard technology as a recent activity, for example a stone axe was agreed to be technology by less than half the group and about 1/5 of the group agreed that ’technology is something rather new that only has existed a few hundred years’. Some possible implications of these results are discussed