Usage of three-dimensional printers in education: An application on students

Today three dimensional printers are one of the technological system for implementing product prototyping and printing services efficiently in time and cost. By processing a various types of materials three dimensional printers layer the three dimensional model thus it creates a genuine model by processing the model layer by layer. This method is appropriate for applying on all prototypes at every sectors. Especially, the use of the technology on STEM educational (training) zone enables the students to practice and observe thus it contributes to their visions and creativeness. This study has been carried out in order to find out the behavious, attitudes, approaches of the secondary school and high school students towards the three dimensional technology for the first time by designing and printing a key holder. The field research was carried out with secondary school and high school students at Three Dimensional Printing And Designing Center Of İzmit Municipality between January and June, 2018. The data was a collected by a conventional survey technique. 600 students participated in the survey, but 125 questionnaire was excluded from the research for the reason of irrelevant and incorrect returns of the students. The complete survey was carried out with 475 participants. For the survey the students showed on interesting and inspring approach to the technology not boring. Also the expressions that the students tend to participate in the training over again indicate that the students have a positive attitude towards the training course. After the training course and the applications it shows that the students' approach towards the technology that was low pre-training, partly high while the post-training and in a very promising rate post-applicaton has changed significantly. The extent of the research also try to point out whether the intentions, attitudes and observations of the students, their perceptions pre-training, post-training and post-application differs by their demographic characteristics or not. According to the analysis results the approaches and the attitudes towards the technology pre-training differs by age, rating of education and the level of grades and post-training it differs by age and ratings of education. In the research on analysis was carried out in order to reveal the effects of the day and the time the students participated in the training and the effects of the day and the time on their attitudes toward the three dimensional printing technology pre-training, post-training and after the printing process, and effects on their attitudes towards designing the product and observations during the process and the post-training approaches of the students. According to analysis result, the day of the training has only a statistical impact on the post-training students approaches. Also the actualy time of training has a statistical impact on the students attitudes and intentiontions on the three dimensional printing technology. Keywords: The technology of three dimensional printing, technological experimentation, technology training, perception on technology, attitude on technology.