[[alternative]]A Survey on Status of Computer Course in Senior High Schools

[[abstract]]The purpose of this study is to investigate the status of computer course in senior high schools. We conducted a web survey on 381 computer teachers of 283 high schools for investigating how computer courses are currently implemented. A total of 163 (42.8%) teachers responded to our survey. The result of this survey indicated that high school computer teachers are mostly male (72%), 65% of teachers have a college degree in a computer-related area; 60% have a master’s or higher degree; 87% are certified computer teachers. As to the implementation of the course, most of high schools (80%) offer their students 72 or more hours of computer classes and 39% of schools provide advanced computer courses. Most teachers spend a majority of class hours in teaching application software and fundamental programming, but less time in algorithms and data structures. Visual Basic has been chosen by most teachers (72%) for programming instruction. Among the factors that are considered by most teachers as hindrance to a more successful implementation of computer courses in high school are: insufficient instructional hours, lack of fund for purchasing software and inadequate teacher development programs.