With over forty papers representing fifteen countries including Brazil, Israel, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, Tanzania, Japan, Russia, Botswana, New Zealand, Finland and South Africa, the thirteenth annual PATT conference to be held at the University of Glasgow from Saturday 21 to Tuesday 24 June may prove to be one of the largest for some time.

PATT conferences started back in 1985 where a small-scale workshop on attitude research for technology education was held and became the start of a series of international conferences that still continue today to discuss the possibilities for exploring the attitudes of young people towards technology.

The papers to be presented at this year's event show that the original characteristic of PATT conferences ﾖ an interest in attitude aspects ﾖ is clear and present. PATT conferences continue to be of a unique character that justifies giving them a place among so many other international conferences for technology education.

Aspects that shall be covered include;

-What purposes do we value for Design & Technology?
-What values are important in making design decisions?
-What contributions to the value of Design & Technology education can be made by different disciplines?
- The impact of technology and the role of Design and Technology in raising awareness.
- Vocational craft skills or academic thinking? What is Design and Technology?
- Cross curricular: the place of Design and Technology in a Faculty based setting.

John Dakers, the conference director, who lectures in the Faculty of Education at the University of Glasgow, is delighted with the record number of delegates who are attending. He sees this as "representing a great opportunity for the promotion of a modern and relevant technological education system in Scotland."

He continued, "Technology education has changed considerably over the past decade, not just in Scotland, but also throughout the rest of the world. As we enter the twenty first century, in a technologically advancing world, it must be the right of every child to achieve an appropriate level of technological capability. This conference offers the opportunity for these issues to be considered in a Scottish setting."

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First published: 20 June 2003