Analysis of Engineering Content within Technology Education Programs

This study was done to determine the differences in engineering content offered by technology education licensing programs. In particular, the study compared programs that acknowledged engineering content in their program by adding the term engineering to the program’s title to programs that did not. In addition, this study looked at the differences between technology education programs housed in colleges of engineering versus programs housed in colleges of education, technology, business, fine arts, etc. It was found that programs with engineering in the title did not significantly differ in their engineering content from programs without a change in name. This could indicate that some programs have adopted the term engineering into their title without increasing the engineering content of their program. If this is the case, a technology teacher graduating from a program with engineering in the title would not be any more prepared to teach engineering content than graduates from a traditional technology education program. An alternative, and more positive, view is that technology programs are increasing engineering content without changing their name. It should be noted that the average number of engineering content credits of all the programs is only 7.63 (more than two courses). Regardless of the name or location, this amount of engineering content seems low compared to requirements to teach in other content areas.