Admitting engineering students with the best chance of success: technological literacy and the Technological Profile Inventory (TPI)

In this article we describe the development and val idation of an instrument – the Technological Profile Inventory (TPI). The instrument can be used to determine whe ther an applicant’s level of technological literacy is suit able for admission to an engineering programme. It might be argued that students enterin g a engineering programme should demonstrate a level of technological literacy, not sought during the admission process at most universities in South Africa, which rely primarily on the National Benchmark Testing instrument and the National Senior Certificate exam in tion results. The items used in the TPI were drawn from a previous study (Collier-Reed, 200 6) and were based on a rigorous qualitative analysis of interview data which was in turn informed by categories that emerged from a phenomenographic analysis. Data were collect ed from 198 Engineering and 237 Commerce students and the items subjected to explor atory factor analysis and Cronbach alpha testing. The result of the analysis was a mod ified version of the TPI where the data were found to be reliable and valid. The significan t factors that defined the ‘nature of technology’ were found to be the view of technology as either an artefact or related to a process, while those constituting ‘interaction with technol ogical artefacts’ were direction and tinkering. A cohort analysis suggests that the anecdotal vie w of the possible difference in technological literacy between Commerce and Enginee ri g students is supported by the data – Commerce students are statistically more likely t o view technology as an artefact and interact with technological artefacts only when dir ected to do so, a less technologically literate position. Further work involves determinin g how to meaningfully combine the scores achieved by an individual completing the TPI to ult imately determine a score indicative of their applicable level of technological literacy.