Effect of information technologies (It) pre-service teachers’ learning approaches on their attitude towards programing

Abstract

It has been widely debated issue in the literature that learning programming requires students to have advanced thinking skills to be successful in programming. Having a negative attitude towards programming is considered as one of the important reasons which cause students to fail in programming. The relationship among students’ way of learning programming, their study approaches and their success in programming has not been explored in the literature in detail yet. In this regard, the purpose of the present study is to determine IT preservice teachers’ learning styles and their attitude of towards computer programming; and to investigate their relationship. It was determined that whereas IT preservice teachers’ year at the university exhibits significant difference with respect to their attitude towards programming; no significant relationship is found between their gender and types of their previous high school. However, it was observed that vocational high school graduates were more inclined toward programming compared to students graduated from other types of high schools. Additionally, it was found that most IT preservice teachers preferred deep studying approach the most effective way of comprehension of education materials since it uses the most effective learning strategy. Another positive correlation was determined between approaches of preservice teachers towards deep studying and their attitude towards programming. © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology.