Comparison of the perceived need and actual computer knowledge required of lower form secondary teachers

Comparison of the perceived need and actual computer knowledge required of lower form secondary teachers

• Ng, Mee Wah Eugenia The Hong Kong Institute of Education
• Lai, Yiu Chi The Hong Kong Institute of Education

1996

Hong Kong Educational Research Association (HKERA) 13th Annual Conference: Restructuring Schools in Changing Societies (1996: Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong, China)

• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MA Professional Education for Teachers
• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MG Identities, Attitudes & Opinion of Educational Workers
• F Learning & Teaching
  • FD Application of Communicative Media, IT in Learning & Teaching

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Secondary Education

The Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd) provides training to students who wish to pursue their career in teaching. The authors, computer literacy lecturers, would like to find out if there is any difference between the expectation and perception of the computer knowledge students should possess in order to be competent junior secondary computer subject teacher. The authors would also compare the computer knowledge required with the present Computer Literacy curriculum and suggest amendment if necessary. A questionnaire was distributed to student teachers of Northcote Campus before and after teaching practice in 1996. The questions were grouped under basic computer knowledge, Logo programming, computer applications and others. Student teachers regarded all the computer knowledge as important. They gave highest regards to Logo programming, followed by computer applications, basic computer knowledge and others before teaching practice. However, after teaching practice, student teachers gave lower regards to all categories of computer knowledge except for the topics included in the"others" categories. It might be due to the anxiety they had before teaching practice and they found the reality was not so demanding. Student teachers found that computer applications were more important than the knowledge of Logo programming after teaching practice. The importance of other computer knowledge remained unchanged. It could be due to the fact that not all schools required student teachers to teach Logo programming to their junior form secondary school students. Although the importance for most topics in the"others" category had decreased, there was a slight increase of importance in the topic of artificial intelligence, computer organization, database programming, objected oriented programming language, operating systems and systems analysis and design. The present HKIEd curriculum has covered all the topics in basic computer knowledge, Logo programming and computer applications which student teachers regarded as important. It would be difficult to add topics such as computer organization and computer networking which student teachers perceived as important in the curriculum due to the constraint of credit points allocated for an elective study. However, the computer literacy lecturers could put more emphasis on the topics students perceived as important by putting less emphasis on those such as limitations of computers, concept of programming and evolution of a computer which student teachers perceived as less important. To conclude, student teachers found that there was slight difference between student teachers' expectation and perception of the importance of computer knowledge. The HKIEd has prepared them with adequate computer knowledge to be competent junior secondary computer teachers.

Paper presented at the Hong Kong Educational Research Association (HKERA) 13th Annual Conference: Restructuring Schools in Changing Societies

• English

Conference Papers

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/a56d2f15

2015-07-29