research-article

Teacher Education and Computational Thinking: Measuring Pre-service Teacher Conceptions and Attitudes

Authors:

Elisa Nadire Caeli,

Victoria MacannAuthors Info & Claims

ITiCSE '22: Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 1

Pages 547 - 553

https://doi.org/10.1145/3502718.3524783

Published: 07 July 2022 Publication History

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness of the need for computer science education opportunities and particularly for engaging students in computational thinking ideas and practices to help them understand how computing influences our world. At its core, computational thinking (CT) is seen as understanding how computational practices (such as, abstraction) and tools (such as modeling software) can be used to explore phenomena, solve problems, and influence our lives and society. The push for CT integration has called for preparing future educators to learn CT practices and tools through stand-alone courses and within the context of disciplinary pedagogy/methods courses. However, there are few instruments that measure pre-service teachers' attitudes towards computational thinking and its role in formal schooling. In this study, we developed and validated an instrument to measure pre-service teachers' attitudes towards CT, its role in students' lives, and their own self-efficacy to incorporate CT into their teaching. We report results from a principal components factor analysis on survey responses from 260 pre-service teachers to identify patterns and reduce the number of dimensions of comparison in the analysis. We discuss how pre-service teacher conceptions have implications for preparing future teachers to integrate computational thinking into their instruction.

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Cited By

Espinal AVieira CMagana A(2024)Professional Development in Computational Thinking: A Systematic Literature ReviewACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/364847724:2(1-24)Online publication date: 10-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3648477
Barkela VHan AWeber A(2024)Do Student Teachers Experience Self-Worth Threats in Computational Thinking?Computers in Human Behavior Reports10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100463(100463)Online publication date: Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100463
Musaeus LCaspersen MMusaeus P(2023)A Template for Teaching Computational Modelling in High SchoolProceedings of the 18th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research10.1145/3605468.3609754(1-10)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605468.3609754

Index Terms

Teacher Education and Computational Thinking: Measuring Pre-service Teacher Conceptions and Attitudes
1. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computational thinking

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cover image ACM Conferences

ITiCSE '22: Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 1

July 2022

686 pages

ISBN:9781450392013

DOI:10.1145/3502718

General Chairs:
Brett A. Becker
University College Dublin, Ireland
,
Keith Quille
Technological University Dublin, Ireland
,
Mikko-Jussi Laakso
University of Turku, Finland
,
Program Chairs:
Erik Barendsen
Radboud University & Open University, The Netherlands
,
Simon
Unaffiliated, Australia

Copyright © 2022 ACM.

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Published: 07 July 2022

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Cited By

Espinal AVieira CMagana A(2024)Professional Development in Computational Thinking: A Systematic Literature ReviewACM Transactions on Computing Education10.1145/364847724:2(1-24)Online publication date: 10-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3648477
Barkela VHan AWeber A(2024)Do Student Teachers Experience Self-Worth Threats in Computational Thinking?Computers in Human Behavior Reports10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100463(100463)Online publication date: Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chbr.2024.100463
Musaeus LCaspersen MMusaeus P(2023)A Template for Teaching Computational Modelling in High SchoolProceedings of the 18th WiPSCE Conference on Primary and Secondary Computing Education Research10.1145/3605468.3609754(1-10)Online publication date: 27-Sep-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605468.3609754

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