Spiral Curricula for 21st-Century Technology Education

Fostering Digital and Mechanical Technology Problem-Solving

Abstract

The increasing complexity of 21^st-century society requires skills that enable handling technological, social, and economic changes. The need for 21^st-century skills, like digital literacy, problem-solving and critical thinking, has grown since 1980, when the transformation to a knowledge- and information-based society began (Gervé, 2022; Van Laar et al., 2017).

New skills, known as 21^st-century skills, became relevant in order to deal with changing situations. Computational thinking (CT) as a 21^st-century skills integrates digital and mechanical problem-solving across disciplines and serves as a core competence for a digital society. Since schools prepare students to participate in society, CT should be integrated into technology education (Gervé, 2022; Wing, 2010). This includes mechanical and digital principles, artifacts, and their combinations. To develop targeted skills appropriately for the educational level, a spiral-curricular development could be helpful (Bruner, 1976).

Research indicate that children can solve various technological problems (e.g. Beinbrech, 2003; Eickelmann et al., 2024). It remains unclear, whether a spiral-curricular approach to promote mechanical- and digital-technological problem-solving can be successful. There's little evidence regarding the effectiveness of spiral-curricular approaches for solving technological problems. Therefore, this study aims to develop a spiral-curriculum promoting technological problem-solving and examine its ability to enhance problem-solving. The article presents the redesign of the intervention and test development based on qualitative and quantitative pilot results and provides an outlook on how the future study design will be structured.