A Qualitative Perspective: Pre-Service Teachers’ Discuss Educational Technology Online

Vol. 6 No. 1

Year: 2010

Issue: Jun-Aug

Title: A Qualitative Perspective: Pre-Service Teachers’ Discuss Educational Technology Online 

Author Name: Alexandru Spatariu, Denise L. Winsor 

Synopsis: 

Although there is a push in education to increase the amount of technologies used in the classroom much of the recent literature emphasizes a need to investigate ways to improve the instructional methods used when incorporating technology in education. The focus of the present research is to investigate an instructional technique used in an asynchronous online discussion (i.e., prompts versus no prompts). This research investigates pre-service teachers’ positions on the use of technology in K-12 classrooms. Participants were students enrolled in an online Educational Psychology course at a southwestern urban university; the online discussion transcripts were our data source for this qualitative research design. The treatment group received specific directions and feedback and the control group received very limited directions and feedback. The results of the study indicated that given specific guidelines and expectations for the discussion, the treatment group outperformed the control group in every category consistently within the small group analysis and the between group analysis. In addition, the in-depth analysis points to several findings with regard to how pre-service teachers view Educational Technology in schools, based on the dilemma posed in the online discussion forum.