The nature of technology and engineering (NOTE) as perceived by science and technology teachers in Korea

Purpose: This study wants to identify how teachers perceive technology and engineering as distinct entities and develop a framework of NOTE. Design and methods: To develop the NOTE framework, this study conducted interviews with eight secondary school teachers, comprising four technology and four science teachers. To examine how the teachers perceive technology and engineering and distinguish them, transcriptions of the interviews were analyzed using phenomenography. Results: The results show that all research participants appeared to distinguish technology and engineering in some ways, but with varying degrees. In addition, their perceptions expressed through the interviews were categorized into 11 elements in three domains of the NOTE. The teachers' perceptions also appeared to be influenced by language. As many Korean words are based on Chinese characters, teachers often understood the terms through the meanings of the Chinese characters. Teachers were confused between the Korean terms and their corresponding English terms because what the terms connote are different in each language. Conclusion: This study provides useful information concerning NOTE by analyzing how teachers perceive technology and engineering, which could be helpful in teaching STEM based on NOTE.