Abstract

This study sought to understand the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of teacher educators regarding Computational Thinking (CT) and coding. All elementary teacher educators in the state of Utah were sent a survey and asked to participate in a follow up interview. Twentynine faculty replied. Five of the 29 survey respondents were interviewed. Teacher educators shared their definitions of CT and coding, which primarily dealt with problem solving and computer programming, respectively. Overall attitudes were positive about incorporating CT and coding, but many participants questioned how it would fit into the already overwhelming nature of the elementary education major. However, those who were tasked with teaching educational technologies integrated it with other content areas. In future work, efforts should be made to clarify the expectations for preservice teachers on the part of the state and elementary teacher educators will need to be understood more fully in their roles as models and guides in using CT and coding in the future classrooms of these preservice teachers.

Degree

MS

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Instructional Psychology and Technology

Rights

https://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2022-12-14

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd13089

Keywords

computational thinking, teacher educators, attitudes, elementary education, coding

Language

english

Included in

Education Commons

Share

COinS