| Education plan,teachers-oriented,it is necessary to build up the ranks of teachers before rejuvenating the country.As the core force to promote the development of technology education,technology teachers not only cultivate outstanding technology talents,but also influence the students' perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes and behaviors towards technology,and shoulder the great responsibility and historical mission of "rejuvenating the country by science and technology" and "strengthening the country by education".Therefore,the influence of technology teachers cannot be underestimated,and the research on technology teachers cannot be ignored.It was found that technology teachers had an important influence on the formation of pupils' technological knowledge,capacity and attitudes through Pupils' Attitude towards Technology(PATT).However,in recent years,scholars paid more attention to pupils' attitudes towards technology,few focused on technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,professional attitudes and behaviors towards technology,not to mention systematic thinking about the relationships between the above three variables,which were obviously unfavorable to the development of technology education,the professional growth of technology teachers and the promotion of technology teaching.Therefore,five research questions were put forward here: what were the definitions of the nature of technology,professional attitudes and behaviors towards technology? What was the current situation of technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,professional attitudes and behaviors towards technology? What were the individual differences in technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,professional attitudes and behaviors towards technology? What were the relationships between technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,professional attitudes and behaviors towards technology? What were the implications for technology teachers,technology teaching and technology education? No clear answers to the above questions and the references were lacking.Thus,it is urgent to study and research them deeply.This study firstly took Chinese high school general technology teacher(the following was abbreviated as technology teachers)as research object.It was from the philosophy of technology,historical,educational and social perspective,and combined the attributes of technology,then explained the nature of technology from different dimensions.Using the knowledge and theory in the field of pedagogy,psychology and sociology,referring to the research results of other subjects on teachers' professional attitudes,and according to the equivalence and accumulation principle of attitude and behavior,the components and structures of technology teachers' technological attitudes and behaviors were clarified.Secondly,based on the previous similar research results,this study put forward the structural framework and research assumptions,and compiled three scales about the nature of technology,technology teachers' professional attitudes and behaviors towards technology according to a series of scale design principles and standards.After the pilot test and expert content validity review,the final questionnaires were developed.A total of 835 valid questionnaires were collected by stratified random sampling,and the reliability and validity of three final scales were verified by reliability analysis,exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.Finally,this study used descriptive analysis and difference analysis to explain the overall level and differences of technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes and behaviors towards technology,and adopted multiple linear regression analysis to show the relationship between the variables in the three scales.Through resonating with the related literatures,this study reflected on the overall theoretical framework and measurement tools,analyzed the current situation of the perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes and behaviors towards technology of Chinese high school general technology teachers,discussed the reasons for the differences of the perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes towards technology and behaviors towards technology caused by different individual factors,explained the relationship among the perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes towards technology and behaviors towards technology,The conclusions showed that the three scales' structural dimensions through empirical study were highly consistent with the hypotheses of theoretical deduction.The “perceptions of the nature of technology” scale consisted of eight dimensions: technology as artefacts,technology as knowledge,technology as activity,technology as will,history of technology,the role of technology in society,the relationship between science and technology and technology as a double-edged sword.The “attitudes towards technology” scale consisted of seven dimensions: Relevance,Difficulty,Gender Beliefs,Enjoyment,Anxiety,Self-efficacy and Context Dependency.The “behaviors towards technology” scale was single-dimensional,which was highly concluded from each dimension in the “attitudes towards technology” scale.Considering the current situation of technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,technology teacher had a poor understanding of “technology as artefacts” and “technology as knowledge”,had no deep understanding of “technology as activity” and “technology as will”,but had a good understanding of “history of technology”,“the role of technology in society”,“the relationship between science and technology” and “technology as a double-edged sword”.Considering the current situation of technology teachers' attitudes towards technology,high school general technology teachers highly considered technology curriculum was very important,felt much enjoyment in teaching and they had high self-efficacy in teaching,but they thought teaching and preparing technology curriculum was difficulty,were worried about teaching,got less support from school leaders and colleagues,and had different gender beliefs.Considering the current situation of technology teachers' behaviors towards technology,they would try their best to make students have a positive attitude towards technology,help students overcome the difficulties encountered in technology courses,encourage students to solve technology problems,but the tendency to search school leaders' supports,relax in class and treat male and female equally in teaching was not strong.In terms of technology teachers' individual differences in the perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes and behaviors towards technology,there were significant gender differences in technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology and attitudes towards technology,but not in behaviors towards technology,the scores of male technology teachers in perceptions of the nature of technology and attitudes towards technology were significantly higher than those of female technology teachers;there were no significant teaching experience differences in technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes and behaviors towards technology;there were significant training frequency and pre-service major differences in technology teachers' attitudes and behaviors towards technology,but not in technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,the differences were as follows: the more technology teachers participated in the training,the more positive their attitudes and behavior towards technology,and the technology teachers majored in mathematics,electronic science and technology,and mechanical engineering had higher scores in attitudes and behaviors towards technology,while technology teachers majored in pedagogy(subject teaching)and education technology had lower scores;there were significant school location differences in technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes and behaviors towards technology,it showed that the scores in technology understandings of technology teachers in rural areas were higher than that in cities and towns,the scores in attitudes and behaviors towards technology of technology teachers in cities were higher than that in towns and rural areas,and the technology teachers' scores in towns were lowest.In terms of the interrelationships among the perceptions of the nature of technology,attitudes towards technology and behaviors towards technology,technology teachers' perceptions of the nature of technology had a significant positive effect on attitudes and behaviors towards technology,attitudes towards technology also had a significant positive effect on behaviors towards technology,attitudes towards technology had mediating effect between the perceptions of the nature of technology and behaviors towards technology.This study gave enlightenments from three aspects: high school general technology teaching,the construction of high school general technology teachers,and professional development of high school general technology teachers.According to the enlightenment,it proposed suggestions from five aspects: firstly,increasing the number of female technology teachers properly,developing technology teachers in multi-ways and emphasizing technology teachers' profession to improve the construction of high school general technology teachers;Secondly,using “paradigm+rules” to enhance the understandings of technology,“mind+body” to deepen the experience of technology teaching,and “example+demonstration” to strengthen the teaching practice of technology,in order to improve the performance of technology teaching;Thirdly,getting rid of gender bias of technology teachers,ensuring the high quality and proper amount of technology teacher training,and striving for the “knowledge—feeling—practice” unified in teachers' training to change the training thought;Fourthly,creating a real-world technology teaching situation,improving teaching evaluation system and strengthening the construction of resources of technology education to ensure the healthy development of technology teachers;Fifthly,giving the professional consultation opportunities for technology teachers,establishing correct values of technology curriculum,and strengthening the construction and propaganda of technology culture and model,in order to create a high-quality environment for technology education. |
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