Naïve Designers’ Information Use during the Design Process in a Low-Resource Classroom

Facilitating the design process in low-resource Technology classrooms has become increasingly challenging in the 21st century. This research focuses on the types of information sources used during learners’ design processes. We examine the information sources that nine South African Grade 9 learners from a low-resource school used while they were engaged in a mechanical systems and control design task. They worked in groups of three to design a machine to lift logs from the ground onto a truck. We utilised a Think Aloud Protocol Study to collect concurrent verbal, visual and temporal data. The results indicate that Grade 9 design teams were predominantly engaged in problem solving activities by using mostly external sources of information during the early phases of the design process. If designing is the backbone methodology of Technology education, attention should be given to the information sources that learners use during designing.