Browsing by Author "Hirvola, Elina"

Technology education has become a more multidisciplinary part of basic education, and related skills are to be developed also in the early years of primary education. The goal of multidisciplinary technology education is not only understanding and using technology, but also learning other future- oriented innovation skills. Multidisciplinary technology education projects have been shown to support the learning of innovation skills, but little research has been done on this topic in the early years of primary education. This thesis examines how teachers view the This works! technology education project to support the learning of social and emotional skills and creative and critical thinking of their students in the first years of primary education. The data was collected from the answers to a This works! user survey (n=100) and through thematic interviews (n=6). Descriptive data from the numerical responses to the survey were examined to provide an overview. The qualitative data from both the verbal responses to the survey and the interviews were analyzed using both theory-guided and data-driven qualitative content analysis. For social and emotional skills, the analysis was guided by the five core competencies of social and emotional learning (CASEL, 2020). For creative and critical thinking, the analysis was data driven. The research was conducted as a case study with some features of a design-based research. The This works! technology education project was seen to support students' learning of social and emotional skills in all five core competencies of social and emotional learning. The project was seen to support the group work and cooperation skills, but also the learning of emotion regulation, perseverance, consideration of others, recognition of strengths, and shared decision-making. The project was seen to support students’ creative and critical thinking skills through hands-on activities, encouragement of creativity, inventing and imagining, evaluating and sharing, and problem-solving. The skills were practiced in collaboration with others and by working with recycled materials, in the design, construction, presentation and evaluation of moving future machines. The results are in line with previous studies and show that a multidisciplinary technology education project can support the learning of innovation skills in the early years of primary education.