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Lawler (1999) Examines This Disparity In Results Between Genders By Setting ...


Lawler (1999) examines this disparity in results between genders by setting a group of pupils in the final year of primary school two separate tasks, recording the results and making comparisons. This age group were chosen because they had had minimal exposure to the procedural methodology imposed on them by their teachers.
The paper has evolved from research into ways of describing the process of designing. Two possible descriptors to show the effects of introducing project work have been called ‘Big pictures' and ‘Small steps'.
‘Big pictures' designing is future focussed, inspirational, and results in statements of complete ideas. Concerned with the mental process rather than the procedural, self directed, metacognitive process of design.
‘Small steps' designing is reflective, sequential, analytical, and descriptive.
‘Good' designing is evidenced as a combination of these two styles. Some pupils may have a preference for one approach that, if it conflicts with the way their teacher manages the project work, may restrict their progress. Raising the awareness of the teacher to the effects that the strategy that they impose on the project work has on the pupils, could be an important factor in increased student success. The study compared two different contextualised designing approaches to the presentation and management of project work. It shows the effects that each approach had on the performance of a group of seventy-five 11 year olds, and highlights the different responses of boys and girls to the same design situations. The results indicate that the strategy adopted by the teacher for the sequencing of practical project work had a greater effect on ‘good designer' boys, than it did on ‘good designer' girls and had a greater negative effect on less able girls than it did on less able boys (Lawler, 1999)
In a different attempt to relate pupils' thinking styles to performance in Design and Technology, Atkinson (1995) used a test of Cognitive Style, shown to be intimately related in ideas and attitudes, to examine the performance of pupils in their GCSE coursework, utilizing a test devised by Riding and Cheema (1991) The Cognitive Style Analysis (CSA). The test was a result of over thirty methods of defining cognitive style being reviewed had it was concluded that most could be grouped within two fundamental independent cognitive style dimensions. These descriptors used in that test were seen along two axes (x, y), as shown in Fig. 1, each subject being placed along the two continua of Wholist to Analyst (x axis) and Verbaliser to Imager (y axis).

Analytic
Verbaliser Imager
Wholist

Fig. 1.


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