Views of Prospective Teachers Regarding Students Studying in the Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology in terms of Technology Based Material Development Process

Abstract

Providing a sound theoretical background for the integration of technology to teaching-learning environments, the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge focuses on a teachers knowledge on content, technology and pedagogy and the relationship among their mutual interactions (Mishra & Koehler, 2006; Baran, Chuang & Thompson, 2011). A study conducted with 3105 prospective teachers stated that the more efficient prospective teachers become in using the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the higher their techno-pedagogical knowledge competencies also get (Yurdakul-Kabakçı, 2011). In addition, the attitudes of prospective teachers regarding Information and Communication Technologies and their computer self-efficacy are among the reasons affecting their technology integration into class (Sang, Valcke, Van Braak & Tondeur, 2010). The change of attitudes of the prospective teachers, the increase of their computer self-efficacy or the increase of their ICT skills to the desired point are some of the problematic areas which have been studied for some years. It is important to continue studying on improving teachers and prospective teachers cognitive, affective and motor skills related to technology. Yet, it may also be beneficial to approach this subject from a different point of view. If the objective is the integration of technology into the lessons, the cooperation between the teachers/prospective teachers and experts of ICTs can achieve the desired outcome of technology integration to lessons and can ensure that problems concerning the need for technology based software can be overcome. The success of a material designed by only one teacher or one expert of instructional technology may be questionable. The literature indicated that most instructional software are not interactive, cannot gain the attention of the learner, do not have appropriate technical and instructional qualities and they are also difficult to use (Altun, Uysal & Önal, 1999). In addition, it is stated that some instructional software are not suitable for the purpose of the instruction and they proceed just like a book does (Yurdakul, 1998). Approximately, 45 % of the teachers give the inadequacy of the software as the reason why they do not apply computer assisted instruction in class (Yurdakul, 1998). Still there is plenty of instructional software in the market which do not conform to the instructional principles (Yenice, Sümer, Oktaylar & Erbil, 2003). In order to overcome all these negative conditions the cooperation among the adequate number of experts working on a technology based project may be effective (Özkaya & Şeker, 2004). In addition to these, the need for professionally prepared materials and their usage by the teachers in class increase every day (Coştu, Çepni & Yeşilyurt, 2002). This research aims to investigate the views of prospective teachers who are studying at different departments regarding the importance of the students studying at the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies in the process of technology based material development. Determining the needs of prospective teachers studying at different departments in terms of which subjects they need to work with others when developing technology based materials will be beneficial for two ways; firstly, for the development of effective and original projects during their school years and secondly, they will continue this habit of working together in order to employ technology into their classes when they become teachers. This research applied the survey method which is one of the quantitative research methods. The sample of the study is 78 prospective teachers who are studying at eight different departments at the Buca Faculty of Education, Dokuz Eylul University. A questionnaire was used to collect the data from the prospective teachers. The questionnaire had 19 items and it is a 5-point Likert scale. These items were grouped according to analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation steps which are the basic steps of the instructional system design process. The material development tasks that prospective teachers would do in cooperation with students studying at the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies were coded as 1 very unimportant, 2 unimportant, 3 undecided, 4 important and 5 very important in the 5 point Likert scale. SPSS and Excel programs were used to analyze the data. The prospective teachers from different departments view students studying at the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies as the most important in terms of collection of the data, data analysis, and data analysis (n = 53; %67,9) at the analysis step, the appropriate preparation of the content and design (n = 60; %77) at the design step, development of the instructional environment (n = 44; %56,4) at the development step, in case some technical problems come out (n = 67; %85,9) at the implementation step, and the processing and analysis of data by using several software (n = 64; %82) at the evaluation step. The most important result of this study indicated that the prospective teachers from different departments evaluated the participation of the students studying at the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies as important in the technology based material development process. Basing on this result, both instructors teaching at other departments and instructors teaching at the Department of Computer and Instructional Technologies can be suggested to cooperate to exchange information about the related subjects regarding projects to be developed at the Material Design lessons. The final project outcomes can be said to be more successful than projects developed by individual students and can suggest solutions to problems for the criticisms mentioned in the literature especially in the field of instructional software development (Yurdakul, 1998; Özkaya & Şeker, 2004; Altun, Uysal & Önal, 1999). W