Technology
Scholarship Technology examines how well you can think like a technologist in unfamiliar contexts. It is not a recall paper. You are expected to analyse technological practice, technological knowledge and the nature of technology, then justify judgements about outcomes, decisions and consequences. The New Zealand Technology curriculum's three strands give you the analytical framework. The exam rewards precision: define the context, identify constraints, and argue from evidence rather than describe what a product looks like. Candidates who merely list advantages and disadvantages rarely reach Scholarship level.
The three strands
- Technological practice - brief development, planning, outcome development and evaluation.
- Technological knowledge - materials, systems and processes, and how technological knowledge is generated and validated.
- Nature of technology - technology as a human activity shaped by social, cultural, environmental and ethical values.
Worked example
A school asks you to evaluate a prototype rainwater harvester for a community garden. A weak answer describes the prototype. A Scholarship answer states the brief and explicit fitness-for-purpose criteria: volume captured per storm, cost, safety and maintenance. It identifies stakeholders - gardeners, the caretaker, the local council - and analyses trade-offs such as tank size versus structural load, or filtration versus cost. It then evaluates against each strand: was the brief revised after testing (practice)? Is the chosen material UV-resistant and repairable (knowledge)? Whose values shape the water-use rules (nature)? Finally, it recommends a modification and justifies it with evidence from the context.
Traps that cost marks
- Describing a technology instead of analysing it.
- Treating technology as merely applied science.
- Confusing fitness for purpose with fitness for use.
- Ignoring stakeholder conflict or cultural values, including mātauranga Māori.
- Overlooking the difference between a prototype and a production model.
- Making unsupported claims without evidence from the context.
Structure each paragraph as claim → evidence → judgement, drawing evidence from the context. Use technical vocabulary accurately - brief, stakeholder, fitness for purpose, trade-off, lifecycle, viability.