Text-Based Programming Instruction Through Tiered Activity: A Collaborative Action Research
Makaleler > Tam Makale · 2020
Yazarlar: Erkan Geçitli, Nilay BÜMEN
Asia Pacific Journal of Education and Society, Diğer Kurumların Hakemli Dergileri, Uluslararası, Scopus, 2020, cilt 8, ss 64-85
DOI: 10.47215/aji.791967
Özet
This study examines how an action research on tiered activities from differentiated instructional techniques contributes to 9th graders’ attitudes towards programming, motivation levels and programming skills in the elective Computer Science course. The study adopting cooperative action research was conducted through the convergent design from the mixed methods. An eight-week action plan developed by the researchers was carried out with 30 students from an Anatolian High School in Manisa. “Attitude Scale Towards Computer Programming”, “Academic Motivation Scale”, video recordings of the courses, interviews, tiered software rubrics, and student diaries were utilized to collect the data. For the analysis of the data collected through these tools, t-test, ANOVA and Wilcoxon signed ranks test were performed on the quantitative data, and a content analysis was used on the qualitative data. With the combination of quantitative and qualitative findings, the study indicates that the action plan implemented at 9 th grade can make a positive change in the students' attitudes towards programming. It was found out that the electronic products (softwares) developed by the beginner and advanced groups got higher scores. Also, a significant difference between the intermediate and advance groups’ scores from the softwares was found. Although the quantitative findings do not indicate a statistically significant difference in the students' academic motivation levels, the qualitative findings revealed that the students showed a willingness to do more than the task given, and many groups preferred to stay in class to perform the task even at recess. These results implied that programming instructions through tiered activities from the differentiated teaching techniques might have contributions to the students’ attitudes towards programming, motivation levels and programming skills.