Teaching of technological artefacts in early childhood education: a product-centred practice

Children's learning about artefacts as technological solutions is a central part of early childhood technology education. This study investigates what aspects of artefacts teachers address in their teaching as well as any relationships between teachers' conceptions of technology and their teaching of artefacts. We investigated this using a questionnaire and conducting factor and cluster analyses. Results showed that most preschool teachers include artefacts in their technology teaching. Aspects addressed in this teaching are the artefact's common use and name, the fact that the artefact solves a problem and has a (purposefully designed) physical nature, humans' role in its development, and the temporal aspect of the development and that the artefact is a technological object. The most common aspects addressed are the name of the artefact and what it is normally used for. The least common aspects include the artefacts temporal development and the human's role in their development. Only one cluster-group stated they teach this more often than "almost never", this is the group that strongly agreed with statements referring to technology as both an artefact and a process. However, agreement with technology being both artefact and process was no guarantee for including this kind of content. This relation is further discussed.