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

characteristic number
of
items
exemplary items reliability
(Cronbach’s
Alpha)
student-orientation 5 In the Informatics lessons we get the scope to set
ourselves tasks and goals.
context-orientation 5 In the Informatics lessons we are confronted with
topics which we also like dealing with in our spare
time.
interest in Informatics 9 Informatics lessons are interesting to me because
of the topics.
self-concept of ability in Infor- 11 I believe that I am able to solve new problems in
matics
Informatics.
vocational orientation 4 I attend Informatics lessons because it establishes
a basis for my professional choice.
characteristics mean m
(regarding the
data
boys)
of the
student-orientation t0: 3.60
t1: 4.03
context-orientation t0: 3.23
t1: 3.34
Table 4: Registration of characteristics of students
difference mean m
m1-m0 (regarding the
data
girls)
of the
+0.43 t0: 3.40
t1: 3.98
+0.11 t0: 2.73
t1: 2.83
t0
difference StdDev
m1-m0 (regarding the
data
boys)
of the
+0.58 t0: 0.92
t1: 0.88
+0.10 t0: 1.30
t1: 1.25
reliability
(Cronbach’s
Alpha)
t1
0.641 0.699
0.830 0.825
0.860 0.862
0.911 0.926
0.844 0.844
StdDev
(regarding the
data of the
girls)
t0: 1.09
t1: 1.15
t0: 1.05
t1: 1.14
Table 5: Means and standard deviations regarding students’ perception of Informatics lessons
of survey t1: 4.07; the mean value differences are not statistically
significant). These tendencies could be attributed
to the constructive work in the InTech-project, because the
teachers profited from the teaching materials and the experience
of colleagues, and it can be taken to indicate a success
of the implementation strategies of InTech.
Looking at the construct “context-orientation” it stands
out that the scale mean value of the boys is much higher than
that of the girls. This mean value difference is, however,
not statistically significant. The reason for this tendency
could be the girls’ lower interest in Informatics (see table
6). Therefore the girls become less aware of the contextorientation
than the boys.
For the second research question we examine the constructs
”interest in Informatics”, ”self-concept of ability in
Informatics” and ”vocational orientation”. The differences
between the scale mean values at time t1 and time t0 and
the standard deviations of the constructs are calculated (see
table 6). Only the mean difference of the construct “interest
in Informatics”regarding the result of the girls is statistically
significant (based on the significance level of 5 %).
As expected the interest in Informatics of the boys decreases
a little (see section 4). The self-concept of ability,
however, increases. This may mean that the teachers encouraged
the students to embrace technical thinking and
practice as well as introduced them to the functional principles
and utilisation of information and information systems.
The boys’ enthusiasm for careers in the Informatics business
could not be increased. But the scale mean value of “vocational
orientation towards Informatics” is already high with
a value of 4. Moreover the table 6 shows that the scale mean
values of the constructs regarding the girls increase. In con-
40
trast to the development in other natural-science subjects
we find that there is a statistically significant increase of the
scale mean value of the construct “interest in Informatics”
during the first project year. Consequently the Informatics
lessons represent an important instrument to make informatical
and technical aspects accessible to the girls. They were
able to find an interest in Informatics, increase their selfconcept
of ability and their vocational orientation regarding
Informatics.
Looking at table 6 we also recognize that girls show much
less interest in technical professions and in Informatics. Their
“self-concept of ability in Informatics” turns out to be lower
than that of the boys. Comparing the three student characteristics
the scale mean differences between the boys and
girls are statistically significant at the time of survey t0 (level
of significance 5 %). We notice comparable results for the
scientific concepts of competence of the girls. There are indications
that the scientific concept of competence is less
developed in girls than in boys, see [12] and [19]. Possible
reasons regarding the natural sciences are discussed in ([20],
126f) and may be applied to Informatics.
At the time of survey t1 the observed scale mean differences
are not statistically significant any more (level of
significance 5 %). This may indicate that the differences
between the boys and girls decrease in the course of the Informatics
lessons, as far as the students’ characteristics are
concerned which would be a good sign.
The third research question is concerned with the correlation
between the constructs “student-orientation” and
“context-orientation”on the one hand and the constructs“interest
in Informatics”, “self-concept of ability in Informatics”
and “vocational orientation” on the other hand (see table 7