Perceived Need for Course Topics and Student Engagement in Computer Education

Student perceptions about course content, and student engagement, achievement, prior knowledge, and department of enrollment were investigated through an ex-post-facto research study at the school of education in a large university in turkey. the following questions were explored: (1) what are the topics in computer literacy students are most and least interested in, (2) is this perception related to the department of enrollment, and (3) how do prior knowledge and department of enrollment affect engagement and achievement? anova and manova were used to analyze data from 212 freshmen taking the computer-i course. it was found that students from different departments differ significantly on achievement and engagement. moreover, achievement can be predicted from prior knowledge but prior knowledge cannot be predicted from engagement. parallel to the literature, students who have little or no prior knowledge are less successful. overall, students are not as much engaged in schoolwork as one would expect.