Abstract
<p>This study aims to investigate the acceptance of ICT teachers pertaining to the use of Scratch as an Algorithm Visualization (AV) software in terms of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. An embedded mixed method research design was used in the study, in which qualitative data were embedded in quantitative ones and used to explain the results. The data were collected from 214 pre-service ICT teachers studying in four large public universities. Data was gathered through a questionnaire adapted from David’s Technology Acceptance Survey (1989) and through open-ended questions. T-test and Pearson correlation, as well as descriptive statistics, were used to analyze quantitative data and constant analysis techniques were used to analyze qualitative data. Both kinds of data were mixed and are presented in the results section. The results show that pre-service ICT teachers mainly have positive and similar Scratch acceptance scores in terms of usefulness and ease of use. The factors explaining participants’ perceived usefulness are identified as visual interface (37%), pedagogy(36%), and computational thinking (27%). The majority of the participants also found Scratch to be easy to use. Pre-service ICT teachers explained that what makes AV software easy to use is color separation (40%), drag and drop (30%), and familiar interface (30%). Additionally, no significant difference between the acceptance scores of the participants was found in terms of gender, years of programming experience, programming background, and the high school they graduated from as indicators of programming experience. Results congruent with previous studies regarding Scratch were found by the current study.</p>
Highlights
Teaching programming to students of all grade levels has gained importance, especially with the introduction of the term called Computational Thinking
Acquisition of computational thinking skills is certainly not a concern restricted to educators and researchers; it is a concern for countries worldwide, since they have begun to realize the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) instruction for technological and economic development (Wilson, Sudol, Stephenson, & Stehlik, 2010)
The overall results obtained in this study indicate that preservice ICT teachers have positive acceptance of Scratch due to its distinguished features and, more importantly, their acceptance is independent of their gender and programming experience
Summary
Teaching programming to students of all grade levels has gained importance, especially with the introduction of the term called Computational Thinking. Cuny, Sinder, and Wing (2010) redefined the concept as “the thought processes involved in formulating problems and their solutions so that the solutions are represented in a form that can be effectively carried out by an information-processing agent”. Based on the latter, computational thinking has clearly become an interdisciplinary concept based on, but not limited to computer science. Computational thinking has clearly become an interdisciplinary concept based on, but not limited to computer science Today, this concept is accepted as a 21th century skill by the scholars of education and a required skill for students of all grade levels. Increasing attention is being given to computational thinking and related research topics (Grover & Pea, 2013), including the use of algorithms as the central element of computational thinking (Cortina, 2007)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
