An empirical study on English preservice teachers’ digital competence regarding ICT self-efficacy, collegial collaboration and infrastructural support

Abstract

This study aims to investigate English preservice teachers’ digital competence regarding their self-efficacy in information and communication technologies (ICT), their collaboration with colleagues, and the support they received from the infrastructure. A questionnaire based on the “Digital competence of educators (DigCompEdu)” was used in this research. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was applied to verify the hypothesized model using data obtained from 425 graduate students majoring in English pedagogy. This study produced significant findings: (1) English preservice teachers’ ICT self-efficacy has strong or moderate positive associations with their perceptions of collegial collaboration, infrastructural support and digital competence; (2) the association between participants’ perspectives on collegial collaboration and digital competence is statistically equivalent to the association between their ICT self-efficacy and digital competence; (3) although English preservice teachers’ perceptions of infrastructural support have a positive association with their views on digital competence, it is not as significant as the former ones; and (4) further study is needed, as the dependent variables in this study explained only 66% of the variation in collegial collaboration, 44% in infrastructural support, and 78% in digital competence.