Anne-Marie Cederqvist

About Anne-Marie Cederqvist

My research interest is within the field of technology education, and in my thesis I especially study teaching and learning of programming in relation to technological solutions. An overall aim in technology education is to develop pupils' understanding of the technology we are surrounded by in everyday life, where nowadays digital technology is a great part. This overall aim includes two directions; pupils shall be able to analyze existing technological solutions due to structure and function, but they shall also be able to develop their own technological solutions and control them with programming, according to the revised syllabus in technology. Although programming now is a compulsory element in technology education, we have little knowledge about how teaching can be organized in order to develop pupils' understanding of programming in relation to technological solutions. The point of departure in my thesis is therefore to examine pupils' understanding of programmed technological solutions, both when they identify and analyze them, but also when they design their own as they control with programming. A Phenomenographic approach are used in the first two studies to gain a deeper knowledge of pupils' different understandings of programmed technological solutions when analyzing structure and function,  and to map the critical aspects  when pupils are constructing a programmed technological solution with a programming material. The third study, which also uses a phenomenographic approach, investigates the different ways pupils experience the process of contructing a programmed technological solution with a programming material. The fourth study investigates the actions possibilities and constraints of the programming material when pupils are constituting their understanding in the process of constructing a programmed technological solution.  The results of these studies are expected to contribute with knowledge on how pupils constitute understanding of programmed technological solutions and what is critical to understand, but also how teaching can be organized to enable learning about this content.