Maria Knobelsdorf, University of Dortmund, Germany - Didaktik der ...

survey at the
time t0
time of survey beginning of
the school year
2009/2010
survey at the
time t1
end of the school
year 2009/2010
survey at the
time t2
end of the school
year 2010/2011
survey at the
time t3
beginning of
the school year
2011/2012
survey at the
time t4
end of the school
year 2011/2012
number of teachers 24 19 19 - in process
number of students 215 221 160 235 in process
Table 3: Overview of the times and the numbers of participants of the surveys
Table 3 provides an overview of the times as well as the various
numbers of participants in the surveys.
59 students, who are involved in the InTech-project, participated
in the first two surveys. This was identifiable by
means of an individual code. In order to observe the development
during the time of the project, the study of the
research questions (see section 6) is based on the data sets
of these 59 students. Of these 59 participants 45 were boys
and 12 were girls (two students gave contradicting information
about gender). Most of them were 13 and 14 years old
at the time of survey t0 and 14 and 15 years at the time of
survey t1, and attended the 8th grade, about 85% of them
at a grammar school (Gymnasium).
5.3 Definitions of constructs with regards to
the students
In order to gain information about the students’ perception
of the teaching approach we use the following constructs:
Student-orientation: The construct means that the choice
of goals, the content settings and choice of methods
have to be adjusted to the students’ needs. It includes
the criterion “support of autonomy” from [17] (see section
2.2).
Context-orientation: This construct represents the idea
that the given contexts in the lessons are oriented at
real-world contexts which are of interest to the students.
It corresponds with the criterion “contextual
relevance” from [17] (see section 2.2).
The following student-oriented constructs were also used in
the questionnaires:
Interest in Informatics: This construct includes aspects
like enjoying Informatics-related topics and having an
interest in gaining more knowledge in Informatics (for
natural sciences – in the PISA studies 2006 – see ([20],
128); for specific analyses see [18]).
Self-concept of ability in Informatics: The construct includes
self-awareness of competence.
Vocational orientation: This construct reflects the motivation
to learn a specific job in the field of Informatics.
An overview of the constructs, their reliability and exemplary
items can be found in table 4.
5.4 Instruments
The examination of the constructs (see above) takes place
via items. Most of the items are answered on a scale system,
ranging from “disagreement” to “agreement”, where “1”
39
means “I strongly disagree” and “6” means “I strongly agree”
(Likert scale).
A certain number of items form a construct. Using Cronbach’s
Alpha-coefficient we can see how far a group of test
items can be used as measurement of individual variables
(here: constructs). The Cronbach’s Alpha value should lie
between 0.7 and 1. The Cronbach’s Alpha value of the construct
“student-orientation” lies slightly under this value at
the time t0 and at the time t1 the rounded-off value is 0.7
exactly. Therefore we include this construct into the analysis.
In table 4 the constructs, exemplary items and the
Cronbach’s Alpha value can be found.
Answers on a Likert scale are typically ordinally-scaled.
Because the answers on our Likert scale are equidistantly
displayed, test participants should recognize the various possible
answers as being equidistant. Consequently, for the
analysis we use the Likert scale as an interval scale.
6. FIRST RESULTS
The first research question deals with the changes in
the Informatics lessons based on the perception of the students.
The constructs “student”- and “context-orientation”
will be analyzed separately, according to their gender, at
the times of survey t0 and t1. The scale mean values and
standard deviations of these constructs are shown in table
5. The scale mean values of the construct “student-orientation”
show a substantial increase between the beginning and
the end of the first project year independently of gender.
The scale mean values of the construct“context-orientation”,
however, have only risen slightly.
The scale mean difference of the construct “student-orientation”
is statistically significant only with regard to the
boys. The girls’ scale mean difference of this construct is
not statistically significant, the reason possibly being that
too little data could be collected.
It can be seen from table 5 that the scale mean values of
both constructs describing the Informatics lessons increase.
Therefore it can be assumed that the students’ impression is
that their teachers changed to a more student- and contextoriented
approach towards the end of the first project year.
This student perception agrees with the InTech-teachers’
own assessment of their teaching. The results of the teachers’
surveys show that the 18 teachers who participated in
the first two questionnaires assess their teaching as being
more student- and context-oriented and as using more variety
of teaching and learning methods towards the end of
the first year than at the beginning of the project (studentorientation:
scale mean value at the time of survey t0: 3.40,
at the time of survey t1: 3.58; context-orientation: scale
mean value at the time of survey t0: 3.46, at the time of
survey t1: 3.69; variety of teaching and learning methods:
scale mean value at the time of survey t0: 3.90, at the time