What Do Secondary Computer Science Teachers Need? Examining Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Contextual Suppor

The primary purpose of this study was to identify secondary computer science (CS) teachers' needs, related to knowledge, skills, and school setting, to create more effective CS education in the United States. In addition, this study examined how these needs change based on the participants' years of teaching experience as well as their background in CS.;Participants were selected from secondary teachers who were teaching CS content in a school setting (public, private, or charter) or an after-school program during the time of data collection (between 2013 and 2016). This study followed a mixed-method research design using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The data were collected from email listserv discussions, questionnaire responses from 222 secondary CS teachers, and interviews with eight secondary CS teachers. Descriptive statistics, thematic analysis, and content analysis were used to analyze the data.;Findings report the most common needs identified by teachers with regard to effective CS teaching. Participants reported the need for updating their course(s)' curriculum resources constantly to keep up with changes in CS education practices and national standards. When CS was offered as an elective in their schools, teachers emphasized the need for increasing student enrollment. On the other hand, when CS was a required course in schools, teachers reported a high number of students who showed little interest in learning CS. Different pedagogical needs were discussed in different contexts. The most common pedagogical need expressed was learning student-centered strategies for teaching CS and guiding students' understanding with the use of scaffolding and team-management strategies. Administrators and parents were reported as the main stakeholders in CS education practices, and teachers reported improving these stakeholders' understanding of CS as a need to increase collaboration toward improving CS education practices in their schools. Many secondary CS teachers also shared the need for a community of CS teachers in their district. Even though resources for computer labs (equipment, software, and network) did not appear as a common need, a group of teachers did list resources as a crucial need in their teaching context. Findings also revealed that secondary CS teachers have a variety of different backgrounds and years of teaching experience, and teachers reported different needs based on their experience.