TEACHERS CHOICES OF CONTENT AND CONTEXT IN COMPUTER-EDUCATION COURSES

Most German computer-education curricula contain a range of content-, context-, and application-area topics. This study tries to explain why teachers teach different kinds of topics. It is based on a random sam ple of 1121 lower- and upper-secondary education teachers drawn for th e German IEA-Comped study. Scales were constructed to measure computer science and context/application-area topics taught in the classroom; computer science and context/application-area topics learned during te acher training; self-reported computer science knowledge; motivation t o learn about computers; and social/educational concern for computer u se. These scale variables together with gender and school-level were u sed to construct a path model for testing assumptions about teaching p ractices. The results indicate a strong impact of curricular restraint s and of prior knowledge on the two types of topics taught in German s chools. The influence of teacher training on teaching practices is gre ater for computer science topics than for context/application-area top ics. The results also imply an indirect effect of the variable gender on the teachers' readiness to integrate social, historical, and ethica l issues of computing in their instruction.