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Instructional practices of teachers enrolled in educational technology and general education programs

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Abstract

This study investigated classroom practices of 38 teachers enrolled in university masters' degree programs in educational technology and in other areas of education. The classroom practices related to five key concepts associated with educational technology: (a) learner-centered instruction, (b) instructional design, (c) media and technology, (d) assessment, and (e) instructional alignment. Teachers rated their frequency of use of desirable practices in these five areas on a 30-item Likert type survey. In addition, one class of students per teacher rated its own teacher's frequency of use of the practices on 20 items parallel to items on the teacher survey. The mean overall rating across all teachers for the classroom practice items was very close to Often, or 4.0, on the 5-point scale. There were few reported differences between the teachers enrolled in educational technology programs and those enrolled in other education programs. Student ratings indicated less frequent teacher use of the desirable practices on 16 of the 20 common items, with significantly lower student ratings on 8 of these items. However, there was strong teacher-student agreement on several other comparisons.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Department of Educational Technology atSan Diego State University, USA

    Marcie J. Bober (Assistant Professor)

  2. the Department of Learning and Instructional Technology at Arizona State University in Tempe, USA

    Howard J. Sullivan (Professor)

  3. the Department of Instruction and Curriculum Leadership at the University of Memphis, USA

    Deborah L. Lowther (Assistant Professor)

  4. the Department of Educational Technology at San Diego State University, USA

    Patrick Harrison (Professor)

Authors
  1. Marcie J. Bober
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  2. Howard J. Sullivan
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  3. Deborah L. Lowther
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  4. Patrick Harrison
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Additional information

The study reported in this article was conducted as a doctoral dissertation at Arizona State University.

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Bober, M.J., Sullivan, H.J., Lowther, D.L. et al. Instructional practices of teachers enrolled in educational technology and general education programs. ETR&D 46, 81–97 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02299763

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