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Senate Faculty
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Henry Jay "Hank" Becker
Professor
Department of Education
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Research
Current Projects
Dr. Becker's current research uses as an illustration of the inadequacy of social studies education the presence among the American electorate of a peculiar point of view—that taxes are constantly in need of being lowered and, conversely, that politicians who propose raising taxes are not worthy of being elected.
At one end, he asks what responsibility social studies education has for views similar to the above being dominant in society. Less directly, he inquires how narrow, short-term self-interest comes to be the basis of political opinion. What is the role of self-deception in developing political and social viewpoints?
Dr. Becker's goal is to integrate a wide variety of scholarship—what scholars have written about the psychological consequences of a free-market economy; socialization research and cognitively-oriented studies of influences on people's social judgments and political beliefs; the research on moral development, asking what approaches public schools should take in this area as they hope to improve the sophistication of political and social beliefs and judgments; studies of the politics of social studies education.
Previous Projects
- Teaching, Learning, and Computing-1998, a study of the use of computers and educational reform. The research was being conducted in collaboration with Prof. Ronald E. Anderson of the University of Minnesota and was jointly sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. This research looked at the relationship between teachers' teaching practices, their teaching philosophy, and how they use computers. We examined to what extent U.S. teachers' beliefs reflect a constructivist learning theory and their practices incorporate teaching strategies consistent with that theory (e.g., project-based teaching and the assignment of authentic tasks). We also studied how teachers' beliefs and practices are affected by and, in turn, affect their use of new computer technologies and how the school's formal and informal organization and support structures affect pedagogy and use of technology. A principal study was of teacher leaders and how their philosophies, pedagogies, and computer use practices differ from other teachers.
The study was based on a national survey of 4th through 12th grade teachers in all subjects conducted in the Spring of 1998. The survey included a national probability sample of U.S. schools and two targeted samples of schools and their teachers--high-end technology-using schools and schools that were known for their involvement in educational reform activities. Altogether, more than 4,100 teacher surveys were completed from over 1,100 schools.
Reports from this study were released on the project web site, http://www.crito.uci.edu/TLC and in hard copy. Several peer-reviewed articles also appeared from this study, generally either under my authorship or that of R.E.Anderson.
- In "Who's Wired and Who's Not," an analysis of the October 1997 and December 1998 Current Population Survey data as well as Teaching, Learning, and Computing: 1998 data, I examined children's use of computers both at school and at home. The article was published in the David and Lucile Packard Foundation's Fall-Winter 2000 issue of The Future of Children.
- Research activities for the National School Network organized by BBN Systems and Technologies of Cambridge, MA. The National School Network (NSN) involved more than 300 schools and 120 other "members" (districts, states, museums, resource providers, universities, and others) who are all working towards building "local information infrastructures" for school settings. In 1997, UCI surveyed many of the NSN schools to study how their use of network telecommunications had changed between 1995 and 1997. The focus of this study was on the conditions for innovating telecommunications use, particularly employing pedagogical practices associated with the current "constructivist" school reform movement. The survey examined how hardware connectivity, external support from NSN member projects and districts (professional development), internal school leadership, and several other factors affected teachers' use of the Internet. The survey had responses from more than 125 schools and more than 400 teachers.
- Survey research data on the current pattern of use of information technologies in K-12 schooling. In 1994, I completed an analysis of existing national data concerning instructional uses of computers and video resources for the Office of Technology Assessment. The report, called Analysis and Trends of School Use of New Information Technologies, has 92 pages of text plus about 50 tables. If you want statistical information about how students and teachers use technology, you will be interested in examining this document. Besides being on the Web, it is available by mail from UC Irvine for $15. (Check payable to UC Regents sent to my office address above.)
- Membership on theWhite House Panel on Educational Technology. The President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) set up the Panel on Educational Technology, an ad-hoc advisory group, to make recommendations to the President concerning the Federal role in helping schools exploit the potential of technology for improving teaching and learning. The panel's Report to the President on the Use of Technology to Strengthen K-12 Education in the United States provides the conclusions of this panel's work.
- Charter Schools and Parent Involvement. Kathryn Nakagawa, Ron Corwin, and I wrote an analysis of parent involvement contracts in California Charter Schools. The paper appeared in the Spring, 1997 issue of Teachers College Record.
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