The purpose of this study is to ascertain Engineering Graphics and Design (EGD) pre-service teachers’ experiences of teaching topics that involved sectional drawing during a teaching practice. Level three pre-service teachers at the studied South African university did not struggle to pass EGD, but they struggled with sectional drawing topics. The study was guided by pragmatism and used a mixed-methods approach, comprising a case study design. Of the 50 EGD pre-service teachers’ convenience sampled to participate, the study included 33 who responded to the open-ended questionnaire administered after 5 weeks of their teaching practice. Three pre-service teachers were also observed during their five weeks of teaching practice, while semi-structured interviews were conducted with six pre-service teachers in the first researcher’s office after teaching practice to triangulate the findings. The findings revealed that during teaching practice, EGD pre-service teachers encountered difficulties explaining to learners where to cut and why, without seeing the object or model of the drawing. It also emerged that EGD pre-service teachers lacked strategies to assist learners when teaching sectional drawing. It was concluded that most pre-service teachers struggled to construct and explain tasks involving sectional drawing to learners. The study recommends that the Department of Education provide relevant models that are visible to learners to assist pre-service and in-service teachers when explaining, particularly the interior of the model and how it is cut and sectioned.
Chiggo et al. (Wed,) studied this question.