As the demand for computing careers increases, it is important to implement strategies to broaden the participation in computer science for African Americans. Computer science courses and academic pathways are not always offered in secondary schools. Many teachers are not trained in computer science, yet are pushed to incorporate more computing, computational thinking, and computer usage. A qualitative focus group study was implemented to assess the computer science identities of African American teachers and of their respective urban secondary schools serving African American students. Three major codes were identified: district administration of computer and computing implementation, teacher attitudes towards computer science instruction, and teachers’ recommendations to improve computer science and computational thinking instruction and outreach for African American secondary school students. Findings can be used to improve computer science and technology rollout programs from county and district administrations, teacher instruction with digital tools, and computer science outreach for African American secondary school students.
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This content will become publicly available on June 3, 2025
Science Teacher Perceptions of the State of Knowledge and Education at the Advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence Popularity
The purpose of this study was to gauge the attitudes towards artificial intelligence (AI) use in the science classroom by science teachers at the start of generative AI chatbot popularity (March 2023). The lens of distributed cognition afforded an opportunity to gather thoughts, opinions, and perceptions from 24 secondary science educators as well as three AI chatbots. Purposeful sampling was used to form the initial science educator focus groups, and both human and AI participants individually responded to an attitudes survey as well as an epistemic cognition questionnaire over a 2-week period. In addition to participating in the study, AI—specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT—was used to create two of the three survey instruments and served as an analysis tool for the qualitative results of this mixed-methods study. Results from the qualitative data suggest that secondary science educators are cautiously optimistic about the inclusion of AI in the classroom; however, there is a need to modify teacher preparation to incorporate AI training. Further, ethical concerns were identified about plagiarism, knowledge generation, and what constitutes original thinking with AI use. A one-way ANOVA revealed that there was a significant effect of subject taught on attitudes towards AI in the classroom p < 0.05 level for the four conditions: F(3, 23) = 6.743, p = .002. The partial eta squared of 0.47 indicates a large effect size with practical significance. This study serves as an artifact of knowledge about knowledge at the beginning of a technological revolution.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2049983
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10514229
- Publisher / Repository:
- Springer
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Science & Education
- ISSN:
- 0926-7220
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Artificial Intelligence, Epistemic Cognition, Science Education, Distributive Cognition
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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