Examining associations between perceptions of junior high friends and learning computer programming with implications for teacher preparation
Abstract: Two hundred (200) Japanese students from two junior high schools, aged 14 to 15 years old, completed a 62-item Likert-style questionnaire that included portions of the previously-validated Computer Attitude Questionnaire and also non-cognitive and extrinsic motivational self-evaluation items such as what friends think of the students and how much self-confidence students have in determining how to do things by themselves. Major findings from pre-post assessment of student data were that study habits and perseverance were important to higher achievement, and students who responded high in friends in the questionnaire performed not very well in the test scores. Suggestions for how teacher preparation could benefit from knowledge of these types of associations are presented in the later portion of this paper.
Presider: Brian Kinghorn, Marshall University