Chapter 1, "Consumer Concerns," introduces two important technological design concepts—criteria and constraints. Students will develop skills that include creating an operational definition of a property to test, thinking about variables in a test, and constructing data tables. They will use a set of criteria to evaluate certain products as well as think about the constraints that affect the design of the products. The module introduces them to the idea of human factors as a design constraint. This idea will continue through the rest of the module.
In the Engage activity, What Would You Buy?, students will think about the reasons why they might choose one brand of product over another. They will consider the properties of paper towels and rank the properties according to those that are most important to them. As they continue with the Explore activity, Putting Paper Towels to the Test, they will design an investigation to test one of the properties of paper towels. They will decide on a definition for the property, the way they will test the property, and the variables they will control. They will carry out the investigation and present the results to the class.
In the Explain activity, Paper Towel Consumers, students will learn about the rankings for paper towels provided by Consumer Reports magazine. They will role-play a scenario of engineers deciding the important factors for designing a new brand of paper towel. This activity helps them understand how consumers can make informed decisions without having to test all the brands of a product.
During the Elaborate activity, Part of Your Complete Breakfast, students will test cereals and decide on the criteria and constraints for making the cereals appeal to a teen audience. They will continue their work in the Evaluate activity, Teen Consumer Magazine, by writing a 200-word article for a fictitious magazine that helps explain their cereal rankings.
For the Evaluate activity, Teen Consumer Magazine, students use all the information from the previous chapters and write an article about the results of their cereal tests.
To complete this chapter, students should have first completed the “Doing Technology” chapter. They need to have an understanding of technology and doing technology. They also need some knowledge about how to design an investigation. In particular, they may need a brief introduction to what it means to have a fair test and how to decide on variables. It should be noted that Chapter 3 of this module, “Testing Your Way to a Solution,” focuses on testing, designing a fair test, and types of variables, so do not spend much time introducing your students to those ideas here.
Students may harbor misconceptions about the material they will be studying in this chapter. Some of these misconceptions are listed (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2001) in this section. Do not take time to go through them as a list of lecture topics for your students, but rather use them to inform your teaching as they emerge. Many activities included in this chapter help expose misconceptions and help students develop better mental models:
Constraints are not a concern when designing technology. Many students do not realize the constraints that are involved in designing technology. They think that designers are able to include any criteria they would like in a design and that there are no limits.
- Human factors are not important in designing technology. Some students think that human factors, particularly factors like attractiveness or ease of use, should not affect design. They feel that if a product is designed in a certain way, consumers will “get used to it.” It is known, however, that many people rank properties such as attractiveness highly when they are considering what brand to buy.
The constraints and criteria are the same for all products. Some students think that once they have developed a list of criteria and constraints, the list applies to all products. It is important to realize that some items, such as cost, will usually be a constraint, but that other criteria and constraints depend on the way the product will be used.
