The pupils’ attitudes toward technology survey (PATT) has been used for 30 years and is still used by researchers. Since it was first developed, the validity of the questionnaire constructs has primarily been discussed from a statistical point of view, while few researchers have discussed the type of attitudes and interest that the questionnaire measures. The purpose of this study is to increase the knowledge about student interpretations and the meaning of their answers in the recently developed PATT short questionnaire (PATT-SQ). To research this, a mixed methods approach was used, where the qualitative data from six interviewees (students aged 14) help to explain and interpret the quantitative data from 173 respondents (students aged 12–15). The interviewed students completed a Swedish version of the PATT-SQ 3 weeks prior a semistructured interview. The results from this study imply that the PATT-SQ survey can be used mostly as it is, but this study also shows that there are some categories that require some caution when being analyzed and discussed. For example, the gender category cannot be used as intended since it does not measure what it is supposed to and it might be gender-biased. The interest category can advantageously be reduced to four items to focus on school technology, which will indicate how deep a student’s well-developed individual interest is. And the career category seems to only detect students’ who urge a career in technology, while the other students lack knowledge about what that career might be and therefore they are not interested in such a career.

A central issue when measuring students’ attitudes toward an object is the children’s understanding of that object, in this case, technology. Studies have shown that schoolchildren often describe technology narrowly as different kinds of technological objects; more specifically, modern electrical objects. This may mean that we have been measuring students’ attitudes toward modern technological objects for more than 30 years. This study intends to research what other aspects students potentially describe, when describing technology, and how the descriptions can be implemented in attitudes toward technology research. To visualize and analyze different aspects of technology, Carl Mitcham’s philosophical framework of the manifestations of technology is used. The deductive method used for analysis quantifies students’ descriptions of technology, for use in attitude, and other quantitative, studies. In this study, descriptions of technology and technology education from 164 students (aged 12–15) are analyzed, classified and quantified within Mitcham’s typology (technology as Object–Activities–Knowledge–Volition). The student descriptions are compared to the typology and students score a point for every one of the four aspects of technology they describe. The sum of aspects in the description is named The Mitcham Score. The results of this study show that students can describe technology in a broad way using all four aspects of Mitcham’s typology. In line with previous studies, the most common way is to describe technology as objects and activities using the objects. Technological knowledge has not been in focus in previous studies of student descriptions. In this study, 44.5% of the students mention technological knowledge in their descriptions of technology. Measurement using the Mitcham Score provides a method to study both students’ concepts of technology and the factors that might affect this. The Mitcham Score is potentially one more factor to use in analyzing students’ attitudinal profiles. The method is sufficiently reliable and enables a broad understanding of students’ attitudes.

When studying attitudes toward technology education, the affective attitudinal component has primarily been the focus. This study focuses on how the affective, cognitive and behavioral attitudinal components of technology education can be incorporated using a two-step survey: the traditional PATT-questionnaire (PATT-SQSE) and the recently developed Mitcham Score questionnaire. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship among the cognitive, affective and potential behavioural components of students attitudes toward technology in a Swedish context, using the PATT-SQ-SE instrument including the Mitcham score open items. Results of the analyses show that relationships among the attitudinal components are observable. The results also imply that relationships among the attitudinal components are different for girls than boys. A key factor for the participating students attitudinal relations was interest (affective component) in technology education. An individual interest in technology education was related to both the cognitive component and behavioral intention. Another key relationship, for girls, was that the cognitive component had a strong relationship with behavioral intention, which was not the case for boys. Based on the observed relations between the cognitive, affective and behavioural components we have identified two key implications for educational practice: Girls should learn a broader conception of technology in technology education, if we want them to pursue technology-related careers to a higher degree; Students interest in technology should be stimulated through engaging tasks in technology education.