A conceptual model for the integration of computers into the social studies
Abstract
Teachers, curriculum specialists and instructional designers face the question of how to employ a constantly evolving and increasingly powerful array of computer-based instructional technology within the classroom. Some schools have attempted to foster the integration of computer into instruction-based on individual classroom innovations. The weaknesses of this micro approach has centered on a lack of logistics, the absence of support for the development of medium-based instructional skill, and the habitual reinvention of prior innovations. Other schools have attempted to achieve the integration of computer into instruction through a central plan. This macro approach has proven vulnerable to the failings of bureaucracies and has produced an uneven record of success among academic areas. Most significantly, social studies, along with the humanities, has been slow to incorporate computers into instruction. To a great extent, this gap reflects the fact that central plans by their current positivist nature are more attuned to the structure and needs of math, science, and the practical art than to the structure and needs of social studies and the humanities. The thesis develops a conceptual model of computer integration into social studies. This model is designed to bridge the gap between the macro level's central plan-based approach and the micro level's context sensitive integrative approach by articulating the needs of the social studies within a macro level while maintaining the contextual component necessary for the attention to instances which is inherent to the social studies. Research on the nature of social studies, the epistemology of instructional design theories, and the epistemology of software engineering procedures was synthesized and applied in an examination of computers and social studies. This segment of the research produced the concept of curricular congruency, one of two integral strands of the conceptual model. Research on innovation and organizations generated the second strand, developmental phases. The resultant conceptual model identified the variables associated with the integration of computers into the social studies. It explains their dynamics in terms of the two strands and the reciprocal relationship between the stands, providing a description of integrating computers into the social studies.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Russell, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Educational software|Social studies education|Educational theory
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