Teachers’ participation in professional development concerning the implementation of new technologies in class: a latent class analysis of teachers and the relationship with the use of computers, ICT self-efficacy and emphasis on teaching ICT skills

Abstract

The increasing availability of new technologies in an ever more digitalized world has gained momentum in practically all spheres of life, making technology-related skills a key competence not only in professional settings. Thus, schools assume responsibility for imparting these skills to their students, and hence to future generations of professionals. In so doing, teachers play a key role with their competences in using new technologies constituting an essential prerequisite for the effective implementation of such skills. As models of school development and school effectiveness found teacher professionalization to be a key element with regards to student achievement as well as teachers' in-class use of new technology, the present research project conducts secondary analyses using data from the IEA International Computer and Information Literacy Study 2013 (ICILS 2013) regarding internal and external teacher professionalization. Particular emphasis is placed on the implementation of new technologies in class in a comparison between the education systems of Germany and the Czech Republic. A Latent Class Analysis serves the purpose of establishing a teacher typology with regards to technology-related professional development. This typology is subsequently used for further analyses of additional factors that show a correlation with the teachers' use of computers in class. These include the teachers' ICT self-efficacy and their emphasis on teaching ICT skills. The results show two different types of teachers across both countries. Teachers who participate in professional development use computers more frequently in class, put more emphasis on teaching ICT skills and have a stronger sense of ICT self-efficacy. When comparing teachers in Germany and the Czech Republic, teachers in Germany who participate in professional development consider themselves more ICT self-efficient, while teachers in the Czech Republic use computers more often and put more emphasis on teaching ICT skills compared with their colleagues in Germany.

What Factors Determine the Value of an Online Teacher Education Experience from a Teacher’s Perspective?

“…Teachers involved in ICT professional development definitely tend to use computers more often, place more emphasis on teaching ICT skills, and have a stronger sense of ICT self-efficacy than their skeptical colleagues [35].…”

IEA International Computer and Information Literacy Study 2018 Assessment Framework

“…Secondary analyses of ICILS 2013 suggest that teacher attitudes are associated with the extent and the ways that they use ICT in their teaching (Drossel et al 2017a;Eickelmann and Vennemann 2017). Similar analyses investigated the influence of professional development on teacher attitudes to, and use of, ICT in school education (Drossel and Eickelmann 2017). In fact, there is evidence that school factors, including teachers' collaborative use of ICT, can shape the pedagogical use of ICT for teaching purposes (Drossel et al 2017b;Gerick et al 2017).…”

Schools overcoming the digital divide: in depth analyses towards organizational resilience in the computer and information literacy domain

“…In this context, several studies have found that teacher cooperation in general can be intensified through the use of ICT and that more intensive forms of teacher cooperation can have a positive effect on teachers' use of ICT for teaching and learning (cf. Drossel and Eickelmann 2017;Tondeur et al 2012). Despite of the positive effects attributed to teacher cooperation for teaching and learning with ICT at school, the findings of IEA-ICILS 2018 were able to show that teacher cooperation is subject to variation with respect to two aspects (cf.…”