October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Deryakulu, D., & Olkun, S. (2007). Analysis of Computer Teachers’ Online Discussion Forum Messages about their Occupational Problems. Educational Technology & Society, 10 (4), 131-142. Analysis of Computer Teachers’ Online Discussion Forum Messages about their Occupational Problems Deniz Deryakulu Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies Education, Ankara University, Turkey Tel: +90 (312) 363 3350 Ext: 3203 // Fax: +90 (312) 363 6145 // deryakul@education.ankara.edu.tr Sinan Olkun Department of Elementary Education, Ankara University, Turkey Tel: +90 (312) 363 3350 Ext: 5111 // Fax: +90 (312) 363 6145 // sinanolkun@gmail.com ABSTRACT This study, using content analysis technique, examined the types of job-related problems that the Turkish computer teachers experienced and the types of social support provided by reciprocal discussions in an online forum. Results indicated that role conflict, inadequate teacher induction policies, lack of required technological infrastructure and technical support, and the status of computer subject in school curriculum were the most frequently mentioned problems. In addition, 87.9% of the messages were identified as providing emotional support, while 3.1% messages were identified as providing instrumental support. It is concluded that content analysis technique provides an invaluable tool to understand the nature of communication and social interaction patterns among users in online environments. CMC in education should not only be considered to be a tool for content delivery and instructional interaction, but also a feedback mechanism and a platform for professional support, as well as an informal learning environment. Keywords Teacher stress, Social support, Online discussion forums, Computer-mediated communication Introduction Many studies have examined job-stress, burnout and job dissatisfaction among teachers (Abel & Sewell, 1999; Farber, 1984; Friedman, 1991; van Dick & Wagner, 2001). These studies demonstrated that teachers often experience a great deal of stress when there was an imbalance between the demands of the job environment and their response capability. Wolpin, Burke, and Greenglass (1991) found that the negative work setting characteristics resulted in greater work stressors that in turn were associated with increased teacher burnout thus resulted in decreased job satisfaction. Some other studies revealed that when these negative working conditions merge with poor staff communication and lack of social support that might result in increased teacher stress and burnout (Black, 2003; Brissie, Hoover-Dempsey, & Bassler, 1988; Burke & Greenglass, 1993). Although there is a huge body of research on teacher stress and burnout, few studies have specifically dealt with computer teachers (see Deryakulu, 2005, 2006). Most of these studies concerning teacher stress and burnout used self-report as a source of data. There are extensive critiques related to the use of self-report measures as having significant shortcomings in assessing sources, types and levels of job-stress and burnout (see Guglielmi & Tatrow, 1998). In addition, self-report questionnaires are susceptible to the negative effects of social desirability (see Evers, Brouwers, & Tomic, 2002). Therefore, we decided to use a different data source to examine the sources of jobstresses for computer teachers in order to identify potential barriers to effective and efficient computer education. The present study aims at analyzing the content of messages posted by Turkish computer teachers in an online asynchronous discussion forum about their occupational problems. We believe the examination of the content of messages in this specific online discussion forum would help us portray the major stress-inducing problems of computer teachers, as well as the types of social support provided by reciprocal online discussions. Furthermore, examining the kind of data derived from an open, spontaneous online discussion forum (not initiated by an external researcher) could help us identify new factors, which otherwise could not be obtained by self-reported measures. Background In the following sections, we first provide an overview on the nature of computer education in Turkey and review the existing research findings concerning stress and burnout in computer teachers. Second, we briefly introduce the ISSN 1436-4522 (online) and 1176-3647 (print). © International Forum of Educational Technology & Society (IFETS). The authors and the forum jointly retain the copyright of the articles. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than IFETS must be honoured. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from the editors at kinshuk@ieee.org. 131
concept of social support. Lastly, we present the potential use of computer-mediated communication tools for providing online social support. The Nature of Computer Education in the Turkish Educational System In 1998, The Turkish Ministry of National Education (MNE) received a loan from the World Bank for the Basic Education Program (BEP). The primary aims of the BEP are to expand the scope of basic education and to improve the quality of education. The MNE also set such aims as to ensure that each student and teacher become computer literate, to integrate ICT into school curriculum, and to establish computer laboratories in schools (MEB, 2004). In this context, computer as an elective subject was added to the elementary school curriculum in 1998 as 1 or 2 hours per week for grades 4 through 8, and later was added to the academic high school curriculum in 2000 for grades 9 and 10. The primary aim of this course is to increase the number of computer literate students to facilitate and accelerate the diffusion of ICT usage across school curriculum. In 2005, the MNE allowed students to take computer subjects as electives from the first to the eighth grade. However, total teaching time is restricted to 1 hour per week. Turkey still has difficulties in widening computer literacy among students and integrating ICT into school curriculum. Many students still do not have access to computers in the teaching-learning processes of other subjects such as science and mathematics in public schools (Olkun, Altun, & Smith, 2005). Thus, the only opportunity for many students to have access to computers (especially in high-poverty areas) might be elective computer subjects. However, there are 41,091 public schools housing 12.7 million students in Turkey, while the number of computer teachers who graduated from an accredited computer teacher-training program is only 10% of the number of schools (MEB, 2004, 2005b). According to these statistics, majority of the schools with computers have no computer teacher specifically trained for teaching computers. The MNE has been trying to solve computer teacher shortage by employing one computer teacher for two or more schools, employing computer coordinators as computer teachers or allowing schools to make contract with individuals who have the relatively appropriate background and skills. In short, computer teachers may come from different disciplines in Turkish educational system. This causes other problems especially dissatisfaction among accredited computer teachers in terms of employee rights and responsibilities. For example, computer engineers employed as computer teachers enjoy better payment and seniority advantages while accredited computer teachers do not. Recently, Deryakulu (2005) examined the levels of burnout in Turkish computer teachers using the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Turkish Version. Because there are no norms for this inventory, by using percentage values, she exposed that the surveyed computer teachers displayed fewer symptoms of depersonalization, relatively moderate symptoms of emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment. In this study, using an open-ended form, lack of technical support, lack of student interest, and large class sizes were found to be the foremost stress-inducing problems that the computer teachers experienced. Deryakulu (2006) also examined the factors predicting burnout in Turkish computer teachers. She found two significant predictors of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. These were the types of problems they encountered while teaching computers under a heavy teaching load. These findings suggest that the more the teachers suffered from job-stress, the more they showed symptoms of burnout. As is well known, job-stress and burnout may cause decline in teachers’ job performance and also may be detrimental to the physical and psychological health of teachers. Therefore, we have to think about the ways to reduce teachers’ job-stress to prevent our teachers and students from its harmful effects. One of the effective ways to reduce job-stress is to provide social support to those who are stressed. The Concept of Social Support Social support has been identified as a resource provided by another person that enables individuals to cope with stress (Russell, Altmaier, & Van Velzen, 1987). There are many forms of social support. Beehr and Glazer (2001) have mentioned two main social support categories: (a) structural and (b) functional. According to Cohen and Wills (1985), structural support means that a relationship with one or more others exists. Structural support does not indicate however what other people do or what functions they perform for the focal person. Functional support, on 132
Page 1 and 2:
October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4
Page 3 and 4:
Abstracting and Indexing Educationa
Page 5 and 6:
The Relationship of Kolb Learning S
Page 7 and 8:
a question about learning together
Page 9 and 10:
affordances of networked learning s
Page 11 and 12:
included a unit on collaborative le
Page 13 and 14:
on at different times and work indi
Page 15 and 16:
• the numerous evaluation studies
Page 17 and 18:
wanted to work. The same inquiry pr
Page 19 and 20:
usability studies have a place in t
Page 21 and 22:
Milrad, M., & Jackskon, M. (2007).
Page 23 and 24:
information- and communication tech
Page 25 and 26:
Interactive Examination, the studen
Page 27 and 28:
Table 1. Criteria for grading OD st
Page 29 and 30:
content. Differences in the attitud
Page 31 and 32:
Even though further research on the
Page 33 and 34:
Olofsson, A. D. (2007). Participati
Page 35 and 36:
Etzioni (1993) points out that an i
Page 37 and 38:
programme. They are rather construc
Page 39 and 40:
to be that each individual trainee
Page 41 and 42:
Bernmark-Ottosson, A. (2005). Demok
Page 43 and 44:
The Knowledge Foundation (2005). IT
Page 45 and 46:
Figure 1. Design Theories in contex
Page 47 and 48:
attention as we frequently discuss
Page 49 and 50:
Blog Reflection This design concept
Page 51 and 52:
Narrative Structure (Form) Content
Page 53 and 54:
Löwgren, J., & Stolterman, E. (200
Page 55 and 56:
critique, neither do the single ind
Page 57 and 58:
suggested by Ljungberg (1999b) we c
Page 59 and 60:
the del.icio.us site (see figure 3)
Page 61 and 62:
Device cultures It is not only the
Page 63 and 64:
uilt using a camera-equipped PDA ru
Page 65 and 66:
Jones, C., Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L.,
Page 67 and 68:
Milrad, M., & Spikol, D. (2007). An
Page 69 and 70:
components to be able to deal with
Page 71 and 72:
compulsory throughout the project.
Page 73 and 74:
only with their existing day-today
Page 75 and 76:
As our work continues, we will try
Page 77 and 78:
cognition as well as self-regulated
Page 79 and 80:
Mobile mind map tool for stimulatin
Page 81 and 82:
the pictorial knowledge representat
Page 83 and 84:
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (19
Page 85 and 86: Al-A'ali, M. (2007). Implementation
Page 87 and 88: complex cognitive skills involve em
Page 89 and 90: Table 1. CAT and a linear mathemati
Page 91 and 92: It is agreed that the difficulty le
Page 93 and 94: Figure 7. Our newly added factors i
Page 95 and 96: question factors according to IRT;
Page 97 and 98: Instructure 1 Login User-ID Passwor
Page 99 and 100: Shute, V., & Towle, B. (2003). Adap
Page 101 and 102: distinguish between partial knowled
Page 103 and 104: esponse is identified, then the sco
Page 105 and 106: are stored in the answer record and
Page 107 and 108: 2 (7) MNSQ = ∑WniZ ni ∑ Wni =
Page 109 and 110: in the course. A randomized block d
Page 111 and 112: To test whether ET can effectively
Page 113 and 114: course, more comparison tests could
Page 115 and 116: Fleischmann, K. R. (2007). Standard
Page 117 and 118: educational standards in practice t
Page 119 and 120: laboratory activities, which are bu
Page 121 and 122: process is currently a largely top-
Page 123 and 124: Hsu, Y.-S., Wu, H.-K., & Hwang, F.-
Page 125 and 126: evolution with computing technology
Page 127 and 128: Resources 0.55 0.72 e17 In my schoo
Page 129 and 130: teachers’ instructional evolution
Page 131 and 132: Regression models indicating relati
Page 133 and 134: of beliefs about integrating comput
Page 135: Sinko, M., & Lehtinen, E. (1999). T
Page 139 and 140: Procedure Content analysis procedur
Page 141 and 142: and mice are out of order. I have t
Page 143 and 144: feature of supportive online groups
Page 145 and 146: Anderson, J., & Lee, A. (1995). Lit
Page 147 and 148: Schwab, R. L., Jackson, S. E., & Sc
Page 149 and 150: Investigating the problem An extens
Page 151 and 152: meets the anywhere, anytime require
Page 153 and 154: minimise housekeeping tasks and fre
Page 155 and 156: 3. Join Group Discussion 4. Attend
Page 157 and 158: Figure 4. Learning Shell showing He
Page 159 and 160: engineering the Learning Shell so i
Page 161 and 162: Olfos, R., & Zulantay, H. (2007). R
Page 163 and 164: portion of CourseInfo requires that
Page 165 and 166: Table 2. Assignment evaluation resp
Page 167 and 168: E-3c. Likert scale on usability: Th
Page 169 and 170: organized in four groups, namely: T
Page 171 and 172: The correlations were not high enou
Page 173 and 174: Data illustrate some reliability an
Page 175 and 176: nature, some specific core objectiv
Page 177 and 178: Frederiksen, J.R., & Collins, A. (1
Page 179 and 180: Bottino, R. M., & Robotti, E. (2007
Page 181 and 182: The Text Editor allows the editing
Page 183 and 184: Mathematical content and structure
Page 185 and 186: Consolidation exercises Solution co
Page 187 and 188:
As to course components, the activi
Page 189 and 190:
handle more formal representations
Page 191 and 192:
Lagrange, J. B., Artigue, M., Labor
Page 193 and 194:
processed information was classifie
Page 195 and 196:
Method Participants The participant
Page 197 and 198:
Table 5. Learning outcomes of diffe
Page 199 and 200:
peers and benefited most from discu
Page 201 and 202:
Kayes, D.C. (2005). Internal validi
Page 203 and 204:
This paper considers the potential
Page 205 and 206:
The first assumption ensures that c
Page 207 and 208:
allowed to rise when external fundi
Page 209 and 210:
The second option, lowering the cos
Page 211 and 212:
Downes, S. (2003). Design and Reusa
Page 213 and 214:
Appendix A. Good-enough approaches
Page 215 and 216:
Rapid Prototyping and Design Based
Page 217 and 218:
Initial Design Because the field-ba
Page 219 and 220:
• reducing the number of required
Page 221 and 222:
that they felt this hindrance; I fe
Page 223 and 224:
goals” (Edelson, 2002, p. 114) wa
Page 225 and 226:
more and more from the periphery of
Page 227 and 228:
Edelson, M. (1988). The hermeneutic
Page 229 and 230:
Wang, H.-Y., & Chen, S. M. (2007).
Page 231 and 232:
If the universe of discourse U is a
Page 233 and 234:
we can see that S( X ) − S( Y ) S
Page 235 and 236:
Example 1: Let Ã and B ~ be two va
Page 237 and 238:
columns shown in Table 2, where 1
Page 239 and 240:
(3) Find the maximum value among th
Page 241 and 242:
By applying Eq. (7), we can get the
Page 243 and 244:
Q.2 carries 25 marks, Q.3 carries 2
Page 245 and 246:
the proposed methods can evaluate s
Page 247 and 248:
Gogoulou, A., Gouli, E., Grigoriado
Page 249 and 250:
enabling learner (subject) to work
Page 251 and 252:
• Self-, Peer- and Collaborative-
Page 253 and 254:
(iii) Regulates the communication:
Page 255 and 256:
Figure 3. A screen shot of the SCAL
Page 257 and 258:
2 nd study: Thirty-five students pa
Page 259 and 260:
them characterized it as time and e
Page 261 and 262:
Soller, A. (2001). Supporting Socia
Page 263 and 264:
making reference to the others wher
Page 265 and 266:
Solution 2.2: Deliberately select h
Page 267 and 268:
just near a deadline, when it may b
Page 269 and 270:
assessed on an individual basis. Wi
Page 271 and 272:
- and even appreciated - by student
Page 273 and 274:
Panitz, T., & Panitz, P. (1998). En
Page 275 and 276:
Concept Mapping Concept mapping by
Page 277 and 278:
Research Questions In order to dete
Page 279 and 280:
with their teacher but rather than
Page 281 and 282:
Tukey’s HSD post hoc test reveale
Page 283 and 284:
collaboratively during study time?
Page 285 and 286:
Jegede, O.J., Alaiyemola, F.F., & O
Page 287 and 288:
esources. The use of synchronous te
Page 289 and 290:
The use of digital communication mo
Page 291 and 292:
contributed more information and en
Page 293 and 294:
3. Use the second screen for the le
Page 295 and 296:
• Use drawing to develop writing
Page 297 and 298:
student and teacher on the synchron
Page 299 and 300:
Vogel, J. J., Vogel, D. S., Cannon-
Page 301 and 302:
Cases The first set of ten case stu
Page 303 and 304:
Kılıçkaya, F. (2007). Website re
show all

October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?