Abstract
Associations routinely hold annual conferences to aid with professional development and actively promote the ideals of their membership and the profession they represent. The American Industrial Arts Association (AIAA) was created in 1939 and has held an annual conference the past 76 years to further these goals (Starkweather, 1995). Throughout this period, the profession has gone through significant changes that include a paradigm shift from a focus on the products and processes of industry to a broader focus on technological literacy. The AIAA reflected this shift by changing the association name to the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) in 1985. More recently, the association adapted to the increasing focus on engineering education and changed its name again in 2010 to the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA). The ITEEA conference has run consistently throughout this period and remains a cornerstone professional event. Analysis of the detailed conference programs can highlight historical milestones, current status, and emerging trends within the profession to aid with conference planning and other professional activities.
Highlights
MethodsThis study focused only on the special interest sessions (N = 5,639) for the 1978–2014 ITEEA conferences
Based on the findings presented above, it appears the following topics have generally been consistently represented at the conferences: communication, creativity, hands-on, international, methods, problem solving, and systems. The focus on these topics over such a prolonged period indicates that conference organizers, presenters, and participants value these topics
The findings of this study indicate a growing number of presentations on the following topics: biotechnology, curriculum, engineering, gender, design, distance learning, elementary, leadership, research, technological literacy, and STEM integration
Summary
This study focused only on the special interest sessions (N = 5,639) for the 1978–2014 ITEEA conferences. It did not include pre- and post-conference workshops, general sessions, meetings, meal functions, exhibits, or other activities. Interest sessions could be tagged more than once if their focus fit into several individual topics. Similar to the content organizers, interest sessions that focused on diversity could only be tagged in one of three topics. CCommercial sessions are those sponsored by companies during the normal conference program and run concurrent with other special interest sessions This does not include pre- and post-conference workshops or sessions that companies held on the exhibit floor. Database query tools were used to search 17 other topics that emerged from reviewing conference programs
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