TEL

NAEP Technology and Engineering Literacy (TEL) Assessment

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), otherwise known as The Nation’s Report Card, informs the public about the academic achievement of elementary and secondary students in the United States. Report cards communicate the findings of NAEP, a continuing and nationally representative measure of achievement in various subjects over time. For more than 35 years, NAEP has assessed achievement by testing samples of students most often in the fourth, eighth, and 12th grades. The results have become an important source of information on what U.S. students know and are able to do in a range of subject areas.

To create the new assessment, the National Assessment Governing Board sought a framework of technological literacy knowledge and skills that identifies the understandings and applications of technology principles that are important for all students. The framework defines “literacy” as the level of knowledge and competencies needed by all students and citizens. More than testing students for their ability to “do” engineering or produce technology, then, the assessment is designed to gauge how well students can apply their understanding of technology principles to real-life situations.

At grade 4, for example, all students are expected to:

1. identify types of technologies in their world,
2. design and test a simple model,
3. explain how technologies can result in positive and negative effects, - use common technologies to achieve goals in school and in everyday life.

By grade 12, students are expected to

1. select and use a variety of tools and media to conduct research,
2. evaluate how well a solution meets specified criteria
3. develop a plan to address a complex global issue.

A. Interaction of Technology and Humans

concerns the ways in which society drives the improvement and creation of new technologies and how technologies serve society as well as change it.

Fourth-graders are expected to know that people’s needs and desires determine which technologies are developed or improved. For example, cell phones were invented, produced, and sold because people found it useful to be able to communicate with others wherever they were.

Eighth-graders are expected to understand how technologies and societies co-evolve over significant periods of time. For example, the need to move goods and people across distances prompted the development of a long series of transportation systems from horses and wagons to cars and airplanes. By 12th grade, students are expected to realize that the interplay between culture and technology is dynamic, with some changes happening slowly and others very rapidly. They should be able to use various principles of technology design—such as the concepts of trade-offs and unintended consequences—to analyze complex issues at the interface of technology and society and to consider the implications of alternative solutions

B. Effects of Technology on the Natural World

is about the positive and negative ways that technologies affect the natural world.

Fourth-graders are expected to know that sometimes technology can cause environmental harm. For example, litter from food packages and plastic forks and spoons discarded on city streets can travel through storm drains to rivers and oceans where they can harm or kill wildlife.

Eighth-graders are expected to recognize that technology and engineering decisions often involve weighing competing priorities, so that there are no perfect solutions. For example, dams built to control floods and produce electricity have left wilderness areas under water and affected the ability of certain fish to spawn.

By 12th grade, students should have had a variety of experiences in which technologies were used to reduce the environmental impacts of other technologies, such as the use of environmental monitoring equipment.

C. Effects of Technology on the World of Information and Knowledge

focuses on the rapidly expanding and changing ways that information and communication technologies enable data to be stored, organized, and accessed and on how those changes bring about benefits and challenges for society.

Fourth-graders should know that information technology provides access to vast amounts of information, that it can also be used to modify and display data, and that communication technologies make it possible to communicate across great distances using writing, voice, and images.

Eighth-graders should be aware of the rapid progress in development of ICT, should know how information technologies can be used to analyze, display, and communicate data, and should be able to collaborate with other students to develop and modify a knowledge product. By 12th grade, students should have a full grasp of the types of data, expertise, and knowledge available online and should be aware of intelligent information technologies and the uses of simulation and modeling.

D. Ethics, Equity, and Responsibility

concerns the profound effects that technologies have on people, how those effects can widen or narrow disparities, and the responsibility that people have for the societal consequences of their technological decisions.

Fourth-graders should recognize that tools and machines can be helpful or harmful. For example, cars are very helpful for going from one place to another quickly, but their use can lead to accidents in which people are seriously injured.

Eighth-graders should be able to recognize that the potential for misusing technologies always exists and that the possible consequences of such misuse must be taken into account when making decisions.

By 12th grade, students should be able to take into account both intended and unintended consequences in making technological decisions.

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