The Constructivist Beliefs of High School Computer Teachers

Ya-Hsun Tsai Graduate Institute of Information and Computer Education

National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan

qqtsai0919@gmail.com

Cheng-Chih Wu Graduate Institute of Information and Computer Education

National Taiwan Normal University Taipei, Taiwan

chihwu@ntnu.edu.tw

Abstract—The purpose of this study is to investigate the constructivist beliefs of high school computer teachers and how their background may affect their beliefs. We hope the results of this study should provide valuable ideas for high school teachers in teaching computer science; it should offer suggestions for the center for teacher education as well.

Keywords- High school; Computer teacher; constructivist; teacher’s beliefs

I. INTRODUCTION During past decades, the constructivist view of learning

has had a major impact on education, especially on science education, and it gradually becomes the main driving power to revolutionize science education. Computer Science, which is also a science discipline, became a required subject in high schools in Taiwan in 2011. The constructivist beliefs of high school computer teachers are considered a critical factor which will certainly affect the implementation of the subject.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the constructivist beliefs of high school computer teachers and how their background (such as gender, age, college major, and years of teaching computer courses) may affect their beliefs.

II. METHODS The constructivist beliefs of teachers were examined

from six dimensions: personal relevance, uncertainty, critical voice, shared control- teaching, shared control- learning, and student negotiation. A questionnaire designed to survey the constructivist beliefs of teachers, adapted from Constructivist Learning Environment Survey [1], was distributed to public high schools in Taipei City. As a result, twenty-two computer teachers from thirteen public high schools answered the questionnaire. To further understand if there are differences between what teachers self-reported in the questionnaire and what their students actually perceived, the same questionnaire (with minor changes on the wordings) was also conducted to a class of students who the surveyed teachers were teaching at the time of survey. Reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The reliability of the teacher form ranged from 0.71 to 0.82, except the shared control- teaching is 0.64. The reliability of the student form ranged from 0.90 to 0.95. Following the questionnaire survey, classroom

observations and interviews were carried out to three selected case teachers and their students, who belong to the class answered the questionnaire before, to clarify questions that had emerged from the preliminary questionnaire analysis results. The triangular analysis method was used to conclude findings from the collected data.

III. RESULTS The analysis of the questionnaires suggested that the

beliefs of computer teachers occupied over the middle ground of the constructivism. In a five-point Likert-type scale, both the teachers and their students tended to rate teacher’s constructivism belief of the five dimensions between 3 to 4 points, that is, between “neutral” and “agree” with teacher’s possessing the beliefs. The shared control- teaching is the only dimension that both the teachers and their students rated under 3.0 (2.3 and 2.6 respectively) scale, which means both parties considered teachers less constructivism in sharing power with students in planning instructional contents and activities.

Using paired t test to analysis the questionnaire of teachers’ self-reported beliefs and what their students perceived to see if there’s any difference between them. There were no statistical differences between teachers’ self-reported beliefs and what their students perceived in four dimensions, namely uncertainty, critical voice, shared control- learning, and student negotiation. The differences found was in two dimensions, which were the personal relevance (p=.00) and shared control- teaching (p=.04). Teachers considered themselves more constructivist-oriented than their students perceived in personal relevance, but less constructivist-oriented than their students perceived in shared control- teaching. Classroom observations and interview data revealed that the discrepancy in personal relevance could be due to the fact that teachers tended to illustrate course materials from their personal experience, rather than from students’ perspectives. The discrepancy in shared control- teaching could be due to the traditional culture of respecting teachers, which made students be more inclined to accept what teachers planned for them, despite the teachers admitted that they less involved students in planning instruction.

We also found that there were no differences between teachers’ beliefs in terms of their ages, college majors, and years of teaching computer courses, except in gender.

2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering

978-0-7695-4960-6/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.29

239

2013 Learning and Teaching in Computing and Engineering

978-0-7695-4960-6/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/LaTiCE.2013.29

239

Female teachers demonstrated stronger constructivist beliefs in two dimensions, uncertainly (p=.05) and shared control- learning (p=.02), than those of male teachers. It seems that female teachers would emphasize more on teaching the science nature than the male teachers; and that students were more like to share their learning situations with female teachers than male teachers.

The findings could serve as a window to understand what the high school computer teachers believed in teaching.

Future studies should increase the sample size and investigate teachers from different cultures and regions.

REFERENCES [1] B. Johnson and R. McClure, "Validity and Reliability of a Shortened,

Revised Version of the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES)," Learning Environments Research, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 2004, pp. 65-80.

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