English abstract
Programming is a skill that students must master in the era of the fourth industrial
revolution, as their future greatly depends on it. The main aim of this study is to investigate
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) based IT teachers' perceptions about the
effectiveness of an Arduino course in learning programming and its implications to IT
curriculum. A group of 28 IT teachers were randomly selected from the Science and
Technology Center at the General Directorate of Education in Al-Dakhiliyah Governorate,
Oman, and given a training workshop on Arduino. The were 377 IT teachers who work in
public schools in Al-Dakhiliyah governorate during the academic year 2020/2021.
Quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire and analyzed using SPSS software.
Means, standard deviation and Pearson correlation coefficient were used in this research.
The findings revealed the effectiveness of using Arduino to teach programming for
school students from the IT teachers' perspective. In terms of TAM, the lowest positive
correlation was between Ease-of-Use construct and other constructs (Usefulness construct,
Attitude construct and Intention to use construct). The highest positive correlation was
between Attitude construct and Usefulness construct. The findings also showed that using
Arduino requires a preliminary knowledge about some STEM concepts to make
programming learning easy for students. Finally, IT teachers have a positive perception
towards integrating Arduino in the curriculum. Therefore, the study recommended
integrating Arduino into school curriculum.
