For Peer Review Only
Newly Qualified Teach
ers’ Professional Digital Competence:
Implications for Teacher Education
Journal:
European Journal of Teacher Education
Manuscript ID
EJTE-2016-0215.R2
Manuscript Type:
Original Article
Keywords:
Newly qualified teachers, Professional digital competence, Initial teacher
education, Information and communication technology, ICT self-efficacy
URL: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ Email: ejte@educ.gla.ac.uk
European Journal of Teacher Education
For Peer Review Only
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Newly Qualified Teachers’ Professional Digital Competence:
Implications for Teacher Education.
The professional digital competence (PDC) of teachers is of growing importance
in classrooms, now that digital resources and digital media are becoming
important parts of teachers’ everyday practice. This study explores how newly
qualified teachers are prepared to use ICT in their initial teacher education (ITE).
We present findings of a nationwide survey in Norway on 356 newly qualified
teachers. It explores how these teachers’ information and communication
technology (ICT) self-efficacy is related to how they perceive the quality of, and
contributions from, their ITE related to ICT and the development of their PDC. In
general, newly qualified teachers report fairly poor quality and contribution of
ICT training during their teacher education. We claim that it is necessary to look
at ways to review the quality of ITE and contribute specifically to the
development of PDC and developing ICT self-efficacy in ITE.
[word count 142]
Keywords: newly qualified teachers; professional digital competence; initial teacher
education; information and communication technology (ICT); ICT self-efficacy [word
count 7,735, excluding abstract and keywords]
Introduction
Like other professionals, teachers have experienced increased access to digital tools,
media and digital resources in recent decades (Prestridge and Tondeur 2015). Students
and teachers use various digital resources and social media networks in their teaching.
This, in turn, influences pedagogy and how students and teachers interact and engage
with learning (Burden et al. 2016). Based on the report from the Office for Standards in
Education (2010), Haydn (2014, 455) claimed that findings from England show
‘substantial variations in the extent to which new teachers are able to use new
technology effectively in their teaching’. Other research claimed that pre-service
teachers are expected to be proficient in their use of information and communication
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technology (ICT) for teaching and learning; still, the use of ICT in the classroom
remains below expectations (Gill, Dalgarno, and Carlson 2015; Tondeur et al. 2015).
ITE is constantly under criticism for disappointing outcomes (Ell, Haigh,
Cochran-Smith, Grudnoff, Ludlow and Hill 2017; Sancho-Gil 2017) and is typically
criticised of not preparing future teachers well enough for the complexity of the
profession. Horn and Campbell (2015) present the dilemma of teacher education as
whether to prepare student teachers for schools as they are or schools that should be. A
recognised necessity is that ITE needs to provide student teachers the link between
theoretical knowledge of campus seminars and their classroom practice (Harch,
Shuttleworth, Jaffee, and Marri 2016; Kessel and Korthagen 2001; Darling-Hammond
2000). A
longitudinal study following 110 student teachers from ITE into their early
years of teaching (Hatlevik, 2017), revealed that student teachers anticipated
competence in their role as teachers is important for “subsequent perceptions of
professional competence as a schoolteachers” (Hatlevik 2017, p. 14). This was
confirmed for both newly qualified teachers (working 2 or 3 years) and later for
more experienced teachers (working 5 or 6 years). These findings indicate that
experiences from ITE help student teachers to develop an important fundament for
their future perceived confidence and professional competence as a teachers.
When it comes to ICT, faculty staff within ITE are expected to prepare student
teachers for their future practice and to provide them with the necessary professional
digital competence (PDC). Furthermore, teacher education is central in assisting student
teachers in developing realistic understandings of their profession, preparing them for
their future careers (Brouwer and Korthagen 2005; Sinclair 2008) and preventing any
discrepancy in newly qualified teachers’ expectations of their profession and the
realities these teachers meet in the classroom (Rots, Aelterman, Devos and Vlerick
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2010; Kessel and Korthagen 2001; Haydn 2014). Also, the early experiences of newly
qualified teachers can be decisive in forming their attitudes toward and fostering
endurance in the profession (Haggarty and Postlethwaite 2009).
In the research literature on PDC, some claim that researchers and policymakers
have not sufficiently explored the role of teacher education programmes in affecting the
knowledge levels of student teachers with respect to PDC (Tezci 2011; Albirini 2006).
Internationally, we found literature on newly qualified teachers’ varied experiences with
their initial teacher education (ITE) and the use of ICT (Tondeur 2012; Sang et al. 2010;
Tezci 2009). The comparative review of Usun (2009) provided an overview of how
instructional technologies for global teacher education are utilised, pointing to the need
for support and training to positively integrate technology into classroom practices.
Other studies focussed on the lack of time to explore and support for newly qualified
teachers when they use technology (McKinney et al. 1999, Morris 2010) or highlighted
the importance of good role models and teachers’ experiences of learning with ICT in
ITE programmes (Valtonen et al. 2015). Yet others reported that student teachers and
beginning teachers do not, in fact, use ICT in various ways (Tondeur et al. 2016).
In addition, numerous researchers have provided extensive reviews on different
approaches to ICT integration within ITE (Kay 2006; Goktas, Yildirim, and Yildirim
2008; Usun 2009; Tondeur et al. 2012). However, according to Røkenes and Krumsvik
(2014, 251), such reviews generally include macro- or meso-level analyses of how ITE
programmes ‘organize their student teachers’ ICT-training with an emphasis on
program technological infrastructure, policy, and barriers and enablers rather than on a
micro- or interactional levels focusing on showcasing daily teaching practices and
activities with ICT’.
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In the field of ICT in teacher education, several Nordic researchers have
contributed to research on PDC. Põldoja et al. (2011) presented a model focussed on
teachers’ PDC development in Finland. Arstorp (2015) claimed that technology does
not seem to be a prioritised theme in Danish teacher education, Jóhannsdóttir and
Jakobsdóttir (2014) explored the history of ICT integration in Icelandic teacher
education and Krumsvik (2015) reported on the potential that new technology offers in
teaching and research to increase the quality of teacher education. Furthermore,
Røkenes and Krumsvik (2014), Lund et al. (2014), Instefjord (2015) and Instefjord and
Munthe (2016) have added to the emerging research and knowledge on PDC in teacher
education in Norway.
1
Against this backdrop, the main purpose of this study is to explore newly
qualified teachers’ professional digital competence and how teachers believe that their
teacher education has prepared them to use ICT in their teaching practice. The study
addresses how newly qualified teachers’ ICT self-efficacy is related to - controlling for
gender - their perceptions of the quality of ICT training in ITE, PDC developed through
ITE, usefulness of ICT and distraction from using ICT.
The paper is structured as follows: Following this introduction, we take a brief
look at the theoretical and conceptual background of the study. Thereafter, we give an
account of the design and methods used to collect the empirical data used in the study.
We then present the results and discuss the contribution of the study as well as some of
1
It is also appropriate to recognise the extensive work of Marijana Kelentric and colleagues at
the Norwegian Centre for ICT in Education on the national framework of professional
digital competence for teachers (see in Norwegian:
http://iktsenteret.no/ressurser/rammeverk-laererens-profesjonsfaglige-digitale-
kompetanse-pfdk). The Norwegian Centre for ICT in Education also initated and financed
this present study.
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