Date of Award
6-1-1990
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Center for the Advancement of Education
Advisor
Peter Mills
Keywords
ability, academic, age, advanced program operation, arts, assessment, beginning, cad, career, characteristics, classification, clark county community college, combination, committed resources, communication, community college, computer, computer-assisted design, computer education, computer literate, computer literacy, computer program, computer skills, computer training, conclusions, content areas, continued training, data, database, demographic conditions, demographic factor, design, development, different levels, drafting, electronics, enrollment, establishing program, evidence, exceptional, faculties, faculty members, fifty percent, first semester, formal education, formal university training, gender, gradebook program, hardware literacy, high rates, implementation, in-service program, industry, individual, instructional needs, instructional media, interview process, levels, literature, literature review, local requests, methodology, model, national, needs, objectives, operation, optimist, operation, operation program, outcome, percentage, plan, postsecondary teachers, potential student enrollment, precision, procedures, program, program design, program implementation, program operation, program resources, questions, questioning strategy, reach, rate, rates, research questions, resources, secondary teachers, self-taught, simple computer program, southern nevada, spreadsheet, statistical difference, statistical differences, study, study data, survey, survey instrument, system, teacher computer literacy workshop, teacher training, teachers, technical teachers, training, training program, university, university teacher training programs, vocational teachers, welding, word processing
Abstract
Clark County Community College Computer Graphics Department program director, was approached by Southern Nevada community college faculty members, secondary vocation.al/technical teachers. and local vocational leadership and asked to develop a computer literacy program for the state's vocational teachers. The most optimistic computer literacy studies conducted nation-wide in the last five years indicated that at least fifty percent of teachers in all disciplines lacked computer literacy. With the need for a program established by prior studies and local requests, this study was designed to determine the extend of need prior to the college committing resources for program implementation.
The study methodology included a combination of procedures. A literature search was conducted to identify the competencies required for computer literacy and as the questioning strategy for the survey instrument. A descriptive study and interview process were conducted using a survey instrument to obtain data.
All of the vocational/technical teachers in Southern Nevada were surveyed to determine their precise computer skills levels and how many were or were not computer literate. Research questions included ( 1) what skill areas constitute computer literacy: (2) what specific computer skills did the individual vocational teachers possess: (3) what levels or types of previous formal or industrial education impacted computer literacy levels: (4) which content areas provided computer education; (5) what demographic conditions impacted vocational teacher computer literacy: and (6) where do computer literate teachers obtain their training?
The purposes of this study were to ( 1) conduct a study to determine the computer skills level of the vocational teachers in Southern Nevada; (2) design a computer literacy in-service program targeting the specific instructional needs of the deficient vocational teachers; (3) develop a plan for evaluating the in-service training program; and (4) develop an implementation plan for continued computer literacy in-service training and an undergraduate computer literacy training program fer vocational teachers in university teacher training programs.
The literature review addressed the first research question by providing the specific competencies for determining the characteristics of computer literacy and identifying the specific questions for the survey instrument. The competencies necessary for computer literacy are (1) hardware literacy; (2) word processing: and (3} advanced program operation, spreadsheet. database, gradebook program, or computer-assisted design (CAD} or the ability to write a simple computer program.
The results of the study indicated that fifty percent of the vocational/technical teachers in Southern Nevada are not computer literate. A few content areas, specifically electronics and drafting, had exceptionally high rates of computer literacy with 100 percent for electronics and seventy-three percent for drafting. Some content areas, welding at fourteen percent and graphic arts at thirty percent had exceptionally low levels of computer literacy. The survey data Indicated no significant statistical differences in computer literacy levels between secondary and postsecondary teachers, and no statistical difference based on industry or formal university training.
The demographic factor of age was determined by study data to not be a significant impactor on computer literacy. The data on differences based on gender were inconclusive as less than ten percent of teachers surveyed were women. Sixty-two percent of the computer literate vocational teachers surveyed indicated that they were self-taught, and seventy-one percent indicated that they learned their computer skills after beginning to teach. This provided substantial evidence that industry and formal educational institutions have provided very little computer training for vocational teachers.
The conclusions reached by the study were that the need for computer literacy training in Southern Nevada does exist. With an accurate estimate of the potential student enrollment identified by the study, the Clark County Community College can commit resources for a program. It is recommended that the college implement the Teacher Computer Literacy Workshop model beginning the first semester of school year 1990-1991 and the University of Nevada system implement this or a similar computer literacy component in their teacher training programs.
The final product of this study was the development of a computer literacy training program specifically designed to address the needs of the Southern Nevada vocational teachers. The Teacher Computer Literacy Workshop program design, goals, competencies. instructional media, unit and program evaluation, and revision procedures were elements addressed in the design process.