How Do Pre-/In-Service Mathematics Teachers Reason for or against the Use of Digital Technology in Teaching?

Abstract

The role and the availability of digital technology in society is growing, which is why educators need to increasingly more often decide which types of digital technology to integrate into their teaching and when to integrate them. Thus, those decision-making skills need to be developed and measured especially for pre-service mathematics teachers. Therefore, we conducted an explorative interview study to understand the portfolio of argumentation on whether to use digital technology in different teaching phases and what criteria are used when making those decisions. Our results are based on ten interviews with pre- and in-service mathematics teachers in Germany. The analysis shows that (1) different levels of argumentation can be distinguished and (2) there are indications that teachers need to be aware of digital technology when deciding whether or not to use digital technology in a teaching setting. In addition, (3) besides the teaching-phase perspective and the learner-perspective, we expanded current research by formalizing the educator-perspective in a list of decision criteria. The compiled list of decision criteria was theoretically validated through the literature. In combination with the applied teaching phase framework and taxonomy of digital technology the list could aid in the development of the decision-making skills and potentially could result in a more reflective use of digital technology by pre-service and in-service teachers.

Opinions of elementary mathematics teacher candidates on the use of digital technologies in mathematics education

“…Teacher candidates' training is noteworthy in terms of developing knowledge and skills for DTs (Gonscherowski & Rott, 2022). In this context, it has been concluded that undergraduate education teacher candidates support their use of technology in terms of pedagogical, content, and technology.…”

“…When the use of DTs before undergraduate education is examined, although the views on learning are close to the views on teaching, the views on teaching in the use of DTs after undergraduate education are almost four times higher than the views on learning. It is important to train pre-service teachers for DTs and to develop their "digital technology selection" skills (Gonscherowski & Rott, 2022). This is an indication that undergraduate education has a positive effect on the use of technology by EMTCs.…”

“…This rate does not exceed 25% in all undergraduate courses. In this context, it is thought that the widespread use of digital technology in undergraduate courses will contribute to the decision of educators when the role and use of DTs in life is increasing gradually (Gonscherowski & Rott, 2022).…”

An exploration of preservice teachers’ use of educational technologies as visualization tools when teaching mathematics.

“…Studies conducted in developing countries in other parts of Africa have explored the general usage of educational technologies and investigated the level of skills possessed by preservice mathematics teachers regarding the integration of digital technologies (Kafyulilo, Fisser, Pieters, & Voogt, 2015;Gonscherowski & Rott, 2022;Njiku, Mutarutinya, & Maniraho, 2022). Some studies have focused on preservice teachers' self-efficacy in technology integration and the factors that hinder them from being able to integrate these technologies into their teaching (Batane & Ngwako, 2017;Olugbara & Letseka, 2020).…”