Worldviews of science teachers in educational-technological context as a key factor in digitalization of teaching practices

Abstract

Background: This research deals with science teachers' worldviews in the educational-technological context. Obtaining a deeper insight into teachers' discourse regarding school digitalization and understanding teachers' worldviews in the educational-technological context may be viewed as crucially important since the latter tends to play a central role in the process of digitalization of teaching practices. Methods: This study addresses the following questions: (1) Was there a difference between the teachers regarding their foci of attention expressed via personal pronouns? (2) Was there a difference between the teachers in terms of the quality and degree of their emotional immersion in the discussed topic expressed through the use of emotion words? (3) What are the semantic fields of the word clusters that include the lexemes technology and digital, and do they implicitly convey differences in teachers' understanding of school digitalization? The data were extracted by means of in-depth interviews with 38 Israeli science teachers. The linguistic analysis was employed to examine teachers' language behavior. Results: The results point out the differences in teachers' worldviews, manifested through language behavior. In particular, the differences between the three groups of teachers (outside observers, circumspect participants, and conscientious participants) were found regarding their foci of attention, the level of emotional immersion, and their implicitly conveyed understanding of the digitalization of teaching practices. Conclusions: The teachers' worldviews are the key element for understanding what it means to be or not to be a teacher in a digital society. In addition, our study demonstrates that linguistic analysis in educational research is a promising methodological approach that can render an in-depth and comprehensive picture of the explored phenomenon.