Teaching Quality in Programming Education

Teaching practices play a crucial role in improving students' learning outcomes in mathematics and science. Previous studies have revealed teaching strategies for improving students' programming knowledge and skills in programming education. However, we know relatively little about teachers' use of teaching practices and the factors that may affect teachers' use of them in their programming classrooms. This paper examines teachers' use of teaching practices in their programming classrooms and explores the effect of their background characteristics and self-efficacy. Data are collected from a survey of 164 teachers who taught Scratch programming to students in primary and secondary schools in China. The results reveal that teachers frequently use integrated direct instruction and classroom management strategies for teaching programming with Scratch. We find no significant effect of teachers' background characteristics (gender, subject major, Scratch learning experience, and grade level taught) on their use of integrated direct instruction and classroom management strategies. In addition, there is no significant correlation between teaching experience and teaching practices in terms of integrated direct instruction and classroom management strategies, respectively. When exploring the effect of teachers' self-efficacy on teaching practices in programming classrooms, we find that teachers' self-efficacy is an essential factor that significantly correlates with the application of integrated direct instruction and classroom management strategies. Teachers with high self-efficacy are found to use integrated direct instruction and classroom management strategies more often than teachers with medium and low self-efficacy. These findings lay the groundwork for future research into investigating teaching practices in programming education.