A Cross-Institutional Investigation of a Flipped Module on Preservice Teachers' Interest in Computing

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: Employing Multiple Modes of Technology of Teacher Learning

Abstract

Informed by the Person-Object Theory of Interest, this study investigates the impact of gender, major/specialization, and module design on pre-service teachers’ interest in computing. The study was conducted in a flipped Computational Thinking module hosted in three sections of Educational Technology courses at two U.S. institutions. We deployed a mixed-method concurrent triangulation design. Results from the quantitative analysis showed that pre-service teachers who did both Scratch coding and physical computing practices had a higher level of interest than their peers who only did the Scratch coding. Our qualitative analysis provided more insights and found evidence that pre-service teachers’ interest differed by their gender and major/specialization statuses. Scholarly significance is discussed at the end.

Authors

• Shenghua Zha, University of South Alabama

• Yi Jin, Kennesaw State University

• Pamela Moore, University of South Alabama

• Joe Gaston, University of South Alabama

• Wu He, Old Dominion University