The Interdisciplinary Nature of Technology Education: What makes its implementation successful?

There are many challenges that schools face when implementing technology education in an existing curriculum. For example the interdisciplinary nature of technology education, such as the Picaxebased mechatronics program that is the focus of this paper, poses questions such as where should the program sit in the curriculum, which teacher(s) should take ownership of it and how should (s)he/they develop sufficient skills and knowledge to implement the program in their classrooms? The aim of this paper is to identify and discuss ways of addressing these challenges. The identification of the challenges is based on a study with five schools implementing a Picaxe-based mechatronics program in their schools for the first time. A conceptual framework for successful implementation of mechatonics programs is presented in the paper. Key-Words: mechatronics; Interdisciplinary; implementation; theoretical framework; secondary schools; professional development; technological pedagogical content knowledge; teacher attitudes; intrinsic and extrinsic factors.