Brief report

Introduction

The DidaTab project (Didactique du Tableur, in French, a title that means Teaching and Learning Spreadsheets) is a three year project (2005-2007) funded by the French Ministry of Research and dedicated to the study of personal and classroom uses of spreadsheets in the French context, focussing on the processes of appropriation and uses by secondary school students.

Although ICT is included in the prescribed curricula in many European countries, very few data about effective practices in classrooms are available. At least in France, IT competency of students is largely unknown and it is clearly an issue to determine if the students possess the necessary skills at the end of secondary education (grade 12). The main intention of the DidaTab Project is to take the spreadsheet software as an indicator of IT mastery of secondary school students.

The main goal of the project is :

• Provide an overview, as complete as possible, of spreadsheet uses in school and at home

• Underline differences in uses according to student profiles: stream of studies, gender, social milieu...
• Describe the various kinds of genealogy of use ("trajectories of use")
• Build a theoretical framework to explain the spreadsheet uses and competencies of students
• Identify the basic skills that students should be able to master
• Design exercises, questions and tests to assess these skills
• Evaluate students' skills using these tests

In other words, the issue is to describe what are the "trajectories of spreadsheet use" and to estimate what are the spreadsheet skills of secondary school students.

We had also the ambition to make some international comparisons and we organized research connections with French speaking colleagues from Belgium, Greece, Italy and Switzerland. This cooperation has been effective for curricula comparisons, for elaborating a common list of competences and for exchanging exercises and tests.

Methodological issues

How to describe the trajectories of use, without an extensive study?
(more)

What has been done

Studies concerning prescribed and effective uses
Analysis of spreadsheet competencies and identification of basic skills
Design of a collection of questions and tasks
Paper and computer tests
Exploration of spreadsheet history
(more)

Summary - Key findings

Sparse uses at home and episodic uses at school
A fuzzy curriculum
Students' low competencies
Denial of spreadsheets and end-user programming?
(more)

Project team

Éric Bruillard, UMR STEF, IUFM de Créteil
François-Marie Blondel, UMR STEF, INRP
Françoise Tort, UMR STEF, ENS Cachan

Collaborators
in France

Jean-Marie Baldner, IUFM de Créteil,
Mariam Haspekian, IUFM de Versailles,
Christine Montuori, IUFM d'Aix-Marseille,
teachers and lecturers,
and
Pascale Aoudé, Zaara Barhoumi, Faouzi Bensalem, Amane Bestaoui, Nicolas Boria, Fanny Cans-Lagneau, Wafa Chaabane-Sfaxi, Marie-Laure Compant la Fontaine, Éric Dané, Cédric Fluckiger, Maxime Guesdon, Patrick Lachassagne, Abdelhamid Meddeb, Prince Yeli Nde, René Suc, Claudine Thévenin,
students at Paris 5 University and ENS Cachan,
with the assistance of:
Georges-Louis Baron and Guy Manneux.

Collaborators
in Europe

Monique Colinet, FUNDP, Namur, Belgium,
Virginia dall'O', Milan University, Italy,
Vassilis Komis, Patras University, Greece,
Luc-Olivier Pochon, IRDP, Neuchatel, Switzerland,
Étienne Vandeput, Liège University, Belgium.

Acknowledgements

The project team gratefully thanks the 1100 students, 70 teachers, 30 school managers and the number of individuals which gave a part of their time to this project.

Publications and communications

In English

TORT, F., BLONDEL, F.-M., & BRUILLARD, É. (2009). From error detection to behaviour observation: first results from screen capture analysis, In D. Ward & G. Croll (Eds.) The Role of Spreadsheets in Organisational Excellence, Proceedings of the EuSpRIG 2009 Annual Conference (pp 119-132). London: EuSpRIG. arXiv:0908.1580v1 [cs.HC]

BLONDEL, F.-M., BRUILLARD, É., & TORT, F. (2008). Overview and main results of the DidaTab project, In D. Ward (Ed.) In Pursuit of Spreadsheet Excellence, Proceedings of European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group 2008 Annual Conference (pp 187-198). London: EuSpRIG. ISBN: 978-905617-69-2. arXiv:0809.3612v1 [cs.HC]

TORT F., BLONDEL F.-M., & BRUILLARD É. (2008). Spreadsheet Knowledge and Skills of French Secondary School Students. In R.T. Mittermeir and M.M. Syslo (Eds.): ISSEP 2008, LNCS 5090, (pp. 305-316). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

BRUILLARD, É., BLONDEL, F.-M., & TORT, F. (2008). DidaTab project main results: implications for education and teacher development. In K. McFerrin, R. Weber, R. Carlsen & D.A. Willis (Eds.) Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference, SITE 2008 (pp. 2014-2021). Chesapeake, USA: AACE. ISBN: 1-880094-64-9.

HASPEKIAN M., & BRUILLARD, E. (2007). What role does mathematics play in students’ spreadsheet competencies? A case study of French students skills in a vocational school. In D. Benzie & M. Iding (Eds.) Proceedings of Informatics, Mathematics and ICT, IMICT’07. Boston, USA : College of Computer and Information Science Northeastern University. [CD-ROM]. ISBN 13: 978-0-615-14623-2.

TORT F., & BLONDEL F.-M. (2007). Uses of spreadsheets and assessment of competencies of high school students. In D. Benzie & M. Iding (Eds.) Proceedings of Informatics, Mathematics and ICT, IMICT’07. Boston, USA : College of Computer and Information Science Northeastern University. [CD-ROM]. ISBN 13: 978-0-615-14623-2.

In French

BLONDEL, F.-M., (2009). L'enseignement du tableur entre programmes d'études et compétences, Approche comparative, in Informatique et progiciels en éducation et en formation, G.L. Baron, E. Bruillard et L.O. Pochon (eds.) (pp.181-187), INRP (Lyon).

KOMIS V. (2009). La place des tableurs dans l'enseignement grec. in Informatique et progiciels en éducation et en formation, G.L. Baron, E. Bruillard et L.O. Pochon (eds.) (pp.218-233), INRP (Lyon).

POCHON L.-O. (2009). Apprentissage du tableur dans les formations en Suisse latine. in Informatique et progiciels en éducation et en formation, G.L. Baron, E. Bruillard et L.O. Pochon (eds.) (pp.241-251), INRP (Lyon).

TORT, F, (2009). L'enseignement du tableur en France, in Informatique et progiciels en éducation et en formation, G.L. Baron, E. Bruillard et L.O. Pochon (eds.) (pp.200-217), INRP (Lyon).

TORT, F, (2009). Tests de compétences tableur : Ce que révèlent les enregistrements d'écran, in Informatique et progiciels en éducation et en formation, G.L. Baron, E. Bruillard et L.O. Pochon (eds.) (pp.296-317), INRP (Lyon).

VANDEPUT E. (2009). L'enseignement de l'utilisation du tableur en Communauté française de Belgique, Considéerations curriculaires. in Informatique et progiciels en éducation et en formation, G.L. Baron, E. Bruillard et L.O. Pochon (eds.) (pp.188-199), INRP (Lyon).

BRUILLARD É., BLONDEL F.-M. (2007). Histoire de la construction de l'objet tableur. pré-publication. hal-00180912, version 1.

BLONDEL F.-M., & TORT F. (2007). Comment évaluer les compétences des lycéens en matière de tableur ?. In T. Nodenot, J. Wallet & E. Fernandes (Éds.), Actes de la conférence EIAH2007 (pp. 77-82). Lyon : INRP & Paris : ATIEF. [En ligne : http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00161396 ]

BLONDEL, F.-M., & BRUILLARD, E. (2007). Comment se construisent les usages des TIC au cours de la scolarité ? La cas du tableur, n° spécial : TICE : l’usage en travaux, Les dossiers de l’ingéniere éducative. 139-147.

BLONDEL, F.-M., & BRUILLARD, E. (2006). Les usages du tableur : Premiers résultats et réflexions issus du projet DidaTab. In L-O.Pochon, E. Bruillard & A. Maréchal (Éds.), Apprendre (avec) les progiciels: Entre apprentissages scolaires et pratiques professionnelles (pp. 161-182). Neuchâtel, Suisse: IRDP & Lyon, France: INRP.

DANÉ, E., & MANNEUX, G., (2006). Utilisation des progiciels par les élèves des lycées d'enseignement général et technologique en France, In Pochon, L-O., Bruillard, E & Maréchal, A (Éds.), Apprendre (avec) les progiciels: Entre apprentissages scolaires et pratiques professionnelles (pp. 237-245). Neuchatel, Suisse: IRDP & Lyon, France: INRP.

FLUCKIGER, C. (2006). Apprentissage du tableur en classe de 5e en France. In L-O.Pochon, E. Bruillard & A. Maréchal (Éds.), Apprendre (avec) les progiciels: Entre apprentissages scolaires et pratiques professionnelles (pp. 195-208). Neuchâtel, Suisse: IRDP & Lyon, France: INRP.

TORT, F. (2006). Usages du tableur en Sciences et Technologies Tertiaires. In L-O.Pochon, E. Bruillard & A. Maréchal (Éds.), Apprendre (avec) les progiciels: Entre apprentissages scolaires et pratiques professionnelles (pp. 221-235). Neuchâtel, Suisse: IRDP & Lyon, France: INRP.