Raise Our Technological IQ, Researchers Say

WASHINGTON-- Nearly all Americans believe the ability to understand and use technology is important--and three quarters of us claim at least a nodding familiarity with it, according to a recent poll.

Three fourths of the respondents say they can understand and use technology to a "somewhat or great extent," according to the poll by the Gallup and the International Technology Education Association. But we may flatter ourselves.

"Most people believe they can use technology. I think this is an overestimate," says Gerhard Salinger, a program officer at the National Science Foundation. He spoke at a seminar here this week to mark the release of the poll and a report on technological literacy commissioned by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council.

Better technological education--in school and the workplace--will help create a more technologically literate public, a goal named in the report. The committee behind the report has studied the issue for two years, and calls for a greater public and private effort to support technological literacy.

Raising Tech's Profile

"The issue of technological literacy is barely on the nation's radar screen," says Jonathan Cole, provost and dean of faculties at Columbia University who helped write the report. "This is quite disturbing, given that technology plays such an important role in today's society," he adds.

Cole calls for a broader understanding of technology--what it means, as well as what to do with it. The report and poll indicate that most people think of technology as related to computers, he notes.

"Technology is more than tangible products," says the report. Among its recommendations is a greater integration of technology content from kindergarten through high school.

"Children learn when they are creatively stimulated," says Karen Falkenberg, a committee member.

Cole adds, "We need to include subject matter beyond math and science so that people do not think of technology as science but as fundamental social questions."

Outreach to Workers

The report calls for better teacher education and efforts to raise the level of technological education in the public school and college system. But it also underscores a need for better technological education among those people already in the workforce and out of the education system.

"Legislators, judges, journalists, and others who have to evaluate technology are often ill-equipped to do so," Cole says. "This is a vexing, mass problem."

Many people feel left behind in the rapidly changing world of technology, according to the researchers. "In the next few decades, people's abilities to adjust to new ways of doing things will be tested far more than they have ever been before," the report suggests.

The report called for executive and informal education programs to help people keep pace with technological advances.