pragmatism as a way to frame further studies. The use of only a feminist framework would have Jost the compelling discovery in chapter 4 of the differences in conceptual application between male and female students in the diagnostic tests as well the findings in chapter 7 regarding the transitional thinking patterns that emerged from the analysis of wiring diagrams. On the other hand, a narrow focus on electrical conceptions and conceptual change theory would have lost the rich data on emotion and self-efficacy and the effect that this had on female performance in the project.
Table 3.1. Overall Structure of the study
Description of part of the study
Paper 1 : Chapter 4:
Differences in conceptual thinking amongst male and female technology teacher trainees
l11is is a statistical investigation ofresponses students bad to two diagnostic tests designed to elicit different ideas students have about electric circuits. The data was analyzed in terms of gender, level of science taken at school as well as the quality of the school attended.
Paper 2: Chapter 5
Gender, self-efficacy and achievement in Technology among teacher trainees in South Africa
An investigation of performance in the Doll's House Project as well as the final examination in relation to attitudes, gender and quality of schooling. This included both statistical as well as non-statistical data.
Paper 3: Chapter 6
"My very own mission impossible" What an analysis of student language in their reflect ions can tell us about attitudes to gender and technology
An APPRAISAL Analysis of student reflections on the Doll's House Task. This uses systemic functional grammar as an analytical tool to interpret student experiences of the technology project on the basis of gender and school background
Paper 4: Chapter 7
Using Wiring Diagrams to identify students' models of thinking about basic electric circuits
This study looks at patterns of thinking about circuits that are elicited through the collation and interpretation of student drawings of wiring diagrams. The paper uses a constructivist framework and current literature about conceptual change in learning basic electric circuits. to interpret the drawings.
Type of data analysed and type of analysis
Data: Numerical data, categories in tabular format
Analysis: Statistical analysis oftest responses in terms of gender, educational advantage and whether or not science was studied to the end of school
Data: Numerical data in tabular format, test scores, data on Lickert scales; student reflections
Analysis: Statistical analysis oftest responses in terms of gender and educational advantage as well as performance on the final project and examination and whether or not science was studied to the end of school; Interpretation of reflection data
Data: Student reflections on the project
Analysis: Analysis of student reflections in terms of gender and educational disadvantage using the APPRAISAL framework; Statistical analysis of APPRAISAL categories
Data: Drawings of circuit and wiring diagrams
Analysis: Error Analysis of student drawings of circuit and wiring diagrams; Some statistical representation of different models of thinking
Essentially, all data in the five week period was collected before there was any
detailed interpretation. This did not mean that I did not look at the data. I glanced at it throughout the five week period and developed a qualitative feeling for the data as it was collected. However, the increased teaching load meant that I mainly left the data to the end to interpret. The initial intention of the project was not to investigate the emotional responses towards doing the project from a linguistic point of view, only
The third question; "What were the students' emotional responses to the Doll's House Project?" was one that I had thought would initially be answered by the data that was used for the second paper on Self-efficacy, however, an opportunity arose to look at the data in a more detailed way, by performing an APPRAISAL analysis of the reflection data. The reflection data had proved to be richer than I had initially
expected it to be and so it was at this point that I decided to investigate the emotional responses to the project in terms of gender.
The first question and consequently the first paper in the series is a quantitative
analysis of test data that explores student understanding of electrical concepts in terms of gender. The framework for interpretation is twofold. First there is the constructivist look at the data and the interpretation of different models of thinking about electrical circuits. This is then linked to gender, so the framework used to interpret the findings from this paper relies on the extensive research conducted over the last few decades
The second paper demonstrated the pragmatic approach of dealing with both qualitative as well as quantitative data as well as the two frames of reference much better than the first paper. In this paper, comparisons on the basis of gender are made of quantitative data such as scores for the project. The findings of these analyses are then interpreted using qualitative data from the reflections as well as semi-numerical data from the Lickert scales. In this paper, as well as the third, a greater reliance on the interpretation of the reflection data takes place, with some triangulation in terms of the numerical data. Taken as a whole, the pulling together of the qualitative data from papers 2 and 3, and the quantitative data from papers 1, 2 and 3, allows for the
development of a much richer interpretation of the data, from both a cognitive, constructivist point of view as well as from a gender point of view.
The fourth question "What common errors were made in drawing both circuit and wiring diagrams and in what way do these errors reflect the students' conceptual thinking?" was developed after I noticed that there were anomalies in the way students designed wiring diagrams with students commonly reverting back to conceptual models that they knew to be incorrect. In this investigation, for which there was not enough evidence collected, I had initially intended finding out whether or not there was a gender difference in the way these errors were constructed,
however, in the end, all I could do was investigate the kinds of error made through an error analysis.