Author:

Abstract

Research is an important way in which the field of technology education can become further established. At least in the United States, this is not a field that has attracted sustained sponsored research funding over the decades. There has been no equivalent of the federally supported National Center for Research in Vocational Education (NCRVE), an agency that in the past two decades has given substantial character, both in terms of volume and direction, to inquiry in vocational education. For example, the current emphasis on integration of academic and vocational education, a major tenet of the new American voca- tionalism, draws heavily on NCRVE-generated research. Mainly because of the lack of sustained funding sponsorship, research in technology education has been sparse, outside of the theses of students, and unable to assume a coherent programmatic character. This is not to say that mere sponsorship is the curative the field needs. Sponsorship has its perils, not the least being the politicization of research agendas. But absence of funding reduces the scope and scale of the research efforts of the field.