Paper Info
Title
Changing the Educational Epistemologies of Computer Science Teachers - A Case Study of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Abstract
This paper explores the attitudes of Computer Science (CS) teachers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) who are confronted by the Saudi Teaching Competencies Standards (STCS). The STCS is a response to a substantial need to develop both subject-specific pedagogical ability as well as teachers subject area knowledge. The Ministry of Education in the KSA is encouraging teachers to improve their practices to achieve the new quality requirements for education. This paper presents the results of an investigation of CS teachers’ views on educational belief changes in the KSA schools. The paper addresses how and why CS teachers adopt new educational beliefs in their teaching. The paper presents the results of the investigation of the CS teachers views on educational belief changes in the KSA schools and the STCS policy document guidelines. Research in the area of changing educational epistemology in teaching CS identifies six factors that influence teachers, these are personal pedagogical beliefs, peer learning, curriculum, self-directed learning, student feedback and the STCS. A mixed method study approach was adopted in this work. Content analysis has been applied to the interview transcript and thematic coding analysis to the government policy document (STCS). The results provide a valuable case study in the KSA and emphasize the weak relationship between educational epistemology change and the STCS norms. The findings show that the STCS should provide stronger guidance for CS teachers to keep changing beliefs in teaching CS. The STCS should offer supporting official resources to CS teachers to help them in changing their beliefs in regard to teaching CS.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1109/FIE.2018.8659265
2018 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)
Keywords
Field
DocType
Education,Standards,Interviews,Encoding,Computer science,Guidelines,Technological innovation
Thematic analysis,Christian ministry,Content analysis,Competence (human resources),Sociology,Knowledge management,Public policy,Curriculum,Pedagogy,Peer learning
Conference
ISSN
ISBN
Citations 
0190-5848
978-1-5386-1174-6
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Fayiq Alghamdi100.34
Aletta Nylén213112.42
Arnold Pears330034.58