A Clinical Interview for Assessing Student Learning in a University-Level Craft Technology Course
Abstract
This paper describes the design and development of a clinical interview protocol, the “Interactive Toy Interview” (ITI), that was used to assess prior knowledge and resultant learning among undergraduate students enrolled in a new, university-level “Craft Technologies” course. This new course involved several weeks of project work with electronic textiles and soft circuits. The ITI draws on prior work assessing learning with e-textiles, such as circuit diagram drawing tasks and ‘debuggems’, but it is based on use of existing commercial toys and objects. We present excerpts from interviews with a student who reported no prior background with sewing, circuitry, or programing and discuss what kinds of progress we see in her thinking about interactive toys as they relate to experiences she had in the Craft Technology course.
