Each of the clusters 2 through 10 (numbered 1-2 to 1-10 for elementary, 2-2 to 2-10 for middle, and 3-2 through 3-10 for high school) are teachers whose pattern of student software use is relatively homogeneous and distinct. We will describe several of these at each school level; the remainder can be characterized by an examination of Table 10.
Selected Elementary Level Clusters
At the elementary level, 15% of teachers belong to
Cluster 1-2. These teachers have students use word processing frequently (the score of 8.0 in Table 10 for Cluster 1-2's use of word processing is the maximum possible in our coding system), but they rarely have students use
any other type of software, except for skill-related computer games. In contrast, in elementary Cluster 1-8, which encompasses 7% of all elementary teachers (grades 4-6), students make relatively frequent use of three types
of software besides word processing: CD-ROM reference titles, skill-related games, and simulation software. In addition, students in Cluster 1-8 classes occasionally use the World Wide Web. For further contrast, in
elementary Cluster 1-5, involving 3% of all upper-grade elementary teachers, the software that students use the most–even more than word processing–involves assembling and producing their own multimedia presentations. In
Cluster 1-5, students don't use computers more than in Cluster 1-8; they just use it differently. They are less likely to use skill-based computer games or CD-ROMs, and make hardly any use of simulations, but they do
occasionally use software to present their work to their classmates. Thus, in Cluster 1-5 students' use is oriented more towards producing and explaining things rather than acquiring facts or using games or exercises to learn
basic skills. In the final section of this report, we will show a number of ways that teachers in these three clusters (and others) differ from one another. For example, teachers in Cluster 1-5 are more than twice as
likely as teachers in the other two clusters, 1-2 and 1-8, to be highly proficient in computer skills themselves (i.e., scoring in the upper-third of teachers on a measure of expertise in computer operations).
Middle Grades Diverse-Use Clusters At the secondary school levels, both
middle- and high school, subject-matter responsibilities strongly affect the placement of teachers into different clusters. Three groups of middle-grades teachers are particularly likely to be in the five "diverse-use
clusters"—teachers who primarily teach classes in computers, vocational education teachers, and teachers of mixed academic subjects. Those teachers are about twice as likely to be in one of the diverse-use clusters than into
one of the others, "limited-use" or "specialized-use" clusters. For comparison, most of the single-subject academic teachers are split about evenly between limited- or specialized-use clusters and diverse-use clusters.
The most sharply distinctive pattern is held by computer-assigning middle grades mathematics teachers. Those teachers are five times as likely
to be in the limited- or specialized-use clusters as in the diverse-use clusters. Looked at another way, only 4% of the diverse-use cluster teachers are from math, whereas math teachers comprise 20% of the limited- or specialized-use cluster teachers. (See supplementary Table A-1 in Appendix A.)
At the middle school level, there are five different clusters whose teachers provide students with a
substantial variety and frequency of computer use (Clusters 2-6 through 2-10). However, each of the five diverse-use clusters has a relatively distinct pattern in the types of software students use. Students in all five
clusters make substantial use of word processing, but Cluster 2-6 is otherwise focused only on CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web, while Cluster 2-7 teachers have students use CD-ROMs, games, and simulations, but not the Web, and
Cluster 2-8 teachers' students use the Web a great deal, along with more occasional use of a variety of software including spreadsheets, presentation software, and multimedia authoring. Cluster 2-9 teachers' students are
particularly heavy users of presentation software, multimedia authoring, and graphics related programs for printed output, but they are not as "information"-oriented as Clusters 2-6 through 2-8. Cluster 2-10 shows the
broadest pattern of software use even extending to student electronic mail. Altogether, these five clusters involve only 14% of all middle school teachers. About an equal number of computer-assigning middle school
teachers fall into just two other clusters: the 11% whose main student computer activity is word-processing plus the 5% whose primary activity is skill-related computer games.
High School High-Use Clusters One of these high-use clusters (Cluster 3-6) is focused on the traditional computer literacy applications of instruction in word processing,
spreadsheet, and database software–and almost nothing else. More than half (53%) of the teachers in this cluster are computer education or business education teachers. (See supplementary Table A-3.) Another cluster
(3-7) is heavily Internet-dominated, involving not only substantial use of the Web, but substantial student use of electronic mail as well. The teachers in this cluster come primarily from academic subjects, most commonly
English (25% of Cluster 3-7 teachers). In this group, comparatively few teachers report that typical students in the classroom have used computers more than 40 days (twice/weekly) during the year. (See the bottom row in Table
10.) This may have to do with having a limited number of convenient Internet connections and e-mail accounts, since at the time of this study few academic classrooms had high-speed Internet connections and few schools
provided (or yet provide) e-mail accounts to students on locally-controlled servers. The other three high-use high school clusters are characterized by substantial use of both word processing and
presentation software—in other words, both writing and speaking. Cluster 3-8 involves courses that are information-oriented; both CD-ROM reference software and World Wide Web browsers accompany the word processing and Powerpoint (presentation) activities. Like the previous cluster, 3-7, it is also primarily drawn from teachers of academic subjects, and, again, English teachers are most prevalent.
In contrast, Clusters 3-9 and 3-10 are primarily populated by teachers of computer classes and business education classes. Both involve the frequent use of several types of software in addition to word processing and
presentation software, with most other types of software used occasionally as well. For Cluster 3-9, the most-used software includes spreadsheets and Web browsers. For Cluster 3-10, it includes spreadsheets,
simulations, and graphics-oriented print programs. At this point, it is hard to see what distinguishes these final two clusters. However, as we will show later, one cluster is heavily drawn from teachers whose computer access
is in their own classroom, while the other cluster overwhelmingly uses computer labs. One cluster's teachers teach students who are high in overall academic achievement and teach in high socio-economic status communities; the
other's students are slightly below average in academic achievement and come from lower than average socio-economic backgrounds. We will explore those differences further at the end of this paper.
In high schools, the most active computer-assigning teachers also fall into five clusters. As
with the more diverse-use clusters at the middle school level, relatively few teachers belong to these upper-end clusters. Altogether, for example, only 6% of high school teachers comprise Clusters 3-8 through 3-10, and only
9% additionally comprise Clusters 3-6 and 3-7. Although three-fourths (78%) of all teachers of computer education courses belong to these five clusters, only 12% of science teachers, 9% of English and social studies teachers,
and 5% of math teachers do. (See supplementary Table A-2.)
Middle and High School "Specialized-Use" Clusters Math teachers constitute nearly one-half (47%) of the teachers in middle school Cluster 2-3, in which skill-based games are the dominant mode of computer activity, supported by simulations and limited
spreadsheet or database work. Industrial arts and fine arts teachers together are the majority of teachers in high school Cluster 3-3, whose teachers report very frequent use of graphics software (CAD in industrial arts,
varied drawing and design software in fine arts) along with word processing software as well. High school science teachers are one-third (33%) of the teachers in Cluster 3-4, where use focuses on World Wide Web browser
programs like Netscape, along with some CD-ROM reference software. Interestingly enough, very little word processing is done in those classes. A somewhat similar cluster, 2-5, is formed at the middle school level by
teachers from a wide range of subjects whose students use Web browser software supported by word processing. Although the teachers in these "specialized-use" clusters have students use a less varied array of software, many
of them make computers a part of their classes' instructional activities. Overall, about 25% of the teachers in these clusters have had their "typical student" use computers on more than 40 occasions during the year (twice/weekly). Thus, another way of classifying teachers would be to create categories based on both extent of student computer use and variety of software used. Supplementary Table A-4 describes how teachers of specific subjects are allocated among several categories of diversity and frequency of student software use. (That table employs a somewhat weaker "weekly or more" frequency of use criterion.)
After we discuss several other aspects of teachers' computer use—the objectives they have for students' use, their students' use of computers outside of class, the extent to which they use computers themselves professionally,
and their self-perceived expertise in using computers—we will provide a richer portrait of many of these software-use clusters. OBJECTIVES FOR COMPUTER USE
At each school level, some clusters are characterized by the use of one particular type of software with
students, if not exclusively then at least far more than any other type. We already pointed to Cluster 1-2 at the elementary level, whose students experience computers primarily through word processing (and secondarily
through games). Cluster 2-2 is similar at the middle school level, except that CD-ROMs and graphics-oriented printing substitute for games as a secondary computer activity. Cluster 3-5 is comparable for high school
teachers except that these teachers also have their students use the World Wide Web and/or CD-ROMs. English teachers and science teachers constitute the largest fraction of teachers who fit the "primarily word-processing"
Clusters 2-2 and 3-5.
Not only is there a wide variety of different kinds of software that teachers can use with students, but most types of software can be used for different instructional purposes by different teachers. For example, one teacher may have students do word processing in order to improve how well they communicate their ideas, while another teacher may have students use the same software so they can become more proficient in basic grammar, and another may have students do word processing in pairs or triplets in order for them to learn to work more collaboratively. We asked each teacher whose selected class used computers to indicate which of ten different objectives they had for their students' computer use, and then to pick the three objectives that were most important for them.
Across grades 4 to 12, the two most commonly selected objectives of teachers who assign computer work to their students were "finding out about ideas and information" (51%) and "expressing
themselves in writing" (44%)—two objectives closely linked to the two most common types of software in use word processing and CD-ROM reference software. (See Table 11.) Third and fourth in teachers' estimation were
"mastering skills" (37%) and "improving computer skills" (32%). Although previous national surveys did not ask the same questions about teachers' objectives, other data from those earlier surveys conducted in 1989 and 1992
suggests that the rank-ordering between these pairs of objectives (basic skills and computer skills versus writing and information-seeking) has flip-flopped over the past decade. In other words, the use of computers to have
students learn content knowledge and to improve their writing has taken over from the "computer literacy" and "skills practice" objectives that dominated students' teacher-directed computer use during the 1970s and 1980s.
This suggests that teachers are now seeing computers as advantageous for somewhat more complex competencies than the role they assigned to computers heretofore. [11] Even among elementary teachers, the writing and information-acquisition objectives
were more common than the skills objectives. In fact, a higher percentage of elementary (grade 4-6) computer-assigning teachers than secondary teachers named "writing" as a principal objective. Still, elementary
teachers were also more likely than teachers at other levels were to report that "remediation of skills not learned well" and "computer skills" were among their top three objectives for computer use. In contrast,
computer-assigning teachers of older children were more likely to point to objectives such as having students analyze information and present it to others as a main reason for using computers.