Examination of Turkish Middle School STEM Teachers' Knowledge about Computational Thinking and Views Regarding Information and Communications Technology

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the integration of computational thinking, as well as information and communications technology within educational programs, has gained importance. A primary obstacle to integrating computational thinking into teaching and learning is the level of teachers' knowledge, skills, and perceptions related to this topic. This study aimed to determine the views of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teachers regarding using information and communications technology within their teaching, emphasizing computational thinking within lessons, and conceptually developing levels of computational thinking skills. Another aim was to examine whether these variables differed according to educational discipline, teaching experience, and graduation factors. Data collection was conducted via an online questionnaire completed by participating teachers. One hundred twenty-one (121) teachers from 38 middle schools (34 public and 4 private) in seven different cities in the Republic of Turkey participated. An F test was used to determine whether selected scales, translated from an ICILS 2018 Teacher Questionnaire, differentiated according to educational discipline, teaching experience, and/or graduation factors. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to determine relationships between variables used in data collection. Results indicated that teachers need a sufficient level of education and guidance regarding incorporating information and communications technology into their lessons as well as how to consistently use these tools within their classrooms.

Keywords:

• Computational thinking
• computer and information literacy
• STEM teacher competence