Perceptions about Computer Teachers and Their Teaching Profession (#ecer2009)

Computer Teachers, Other Subject Area Teachers and Administrators’ Perceptions about Computer Teachers and Their Teaching Profession

Yildirim, Zahide (Middle East Technical University, Turkey);

Yalcinalp, Serpil (Baskent University, Turkey);

Kilic, Eylem (Middle East Technical University, Turkey)

Looked at two approaches ICT as a separate subject and integrating ICT in all subjects. Younger EU countries tend still to teach ICT older EU countries have moved towards integration.

In Turkey, computer teachers were assigned to schools, now they tend to be technology leaders and/or IT coordinators. They tend to have a teaching load themselves but are also responsible for organising maintenance, IT training for other teachers, preparing materials and running training sessions.

The researchers looked at IT Teachers perceptions of themselves, how they perceive their administrators and their fellow teachers. Also looked at others perceptions of IT teachers. It is a descriptive study. Collected data from the three largest provinces in Turkey where there are 1086 teachers and 288 administrators. IT teachers number 255 - aprox. 50:50 split male and female and 90% graduated after 2002. Issued three questions consisting of musltiple choice and open ended questions.

IT Teachers questionnaires collected demographic data, as well as perceptions about their own department, physical conditions of school, perceptions of their fellow subject teachers and perceptions of other professionals.

Findings: About one third felt their departments were not meeting the needs of their pupils, that they did not have adequate teaching practice and that their was poor compatibility with programmes elsewhere in the school. IT teachers preferred computer application courses but over a quarter preferred programming and two-thirds had this as their first or second choice as an elective course. Not surprisingly 52% chose IT Teacher as their first choice for their role but interestingly 42.8% listed Multimedia Designer as their third choice.

In general, they think administrators are supportive of IT Teachers. The area where they get most requests of help from other teachers is for Personal Development. Technical support also featured strongly but requests for educational support was more limited.

here are a number of conclusions but one is that the definition of their role is still unclear.