مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - Pedagogical Reflection of the Elective Status of Information Technologies and Software Course from the Perspectives of Teachers

Abstract :

The course titled Information Technologies and Software (ITS) is delivered as an elective course in the schools in Turkey. Broadly speaking, the elective courses are important in a sense that they have the potential to reveal the students’ skills and abilities, to facilitate their self-actualization and to prepare them for the future as these courses are taught as a result of the students’ interests and wishes. It is essential that for the elective courses reach their aims, the necessary conditions must be provided and students’ self interests need to be taken into account. However, the current practices in schools point out a different functioning of elective courses such as they are chosen beyond the students own will. The research studies focusing on ITS teachers’ problems also bring forward the issue of elective status of the course. Drawing on these discussions, given the current practices in schools, it is assumed that the elective status of the course might influence the pedagogical values of the course such as learning and teaching practices as well as the occupational identity and values of the ITS teachers. Within this framework, in the scope of this study, a questionnaire was administered to 80 ITS teachers and interviews were conducted with 5 school administrators. This research is informed by Grounded Theory in analysing the data. Also, some descriptive methods were employed. At the end of the study, implications of the findings were discussed.