Getting ready for teaching with digital technologies: Scenario-based self-assessment in teacher education and professional development

Abstract

Teachers’ technology-related skills are often measured with self-assessments. However, self-assessments are often criticised for being inaccurate and biased. Scenario-based self-assessment is a promising approach to make self-assessment more accurate and less biased. In this study with N = 552 inservice and student teachers, we validated a scenario-based self-assessment instrument IN.K19+ for teachers. The instrument enables scenario-based self-assessment of instrumental and critical digital skills and technology-related teaching skills for teachers. In a confirmatory factor analysis, we show that the instrument has sufficient factorial validity. To test the predictive validity of the instrument, we examined the instruments’ relationship to the frequency of technology use during teaching and teacher-initiated student learning activities involving digital technologies. Results from structural equation modelling show that instrumental digital skills and technology-related teaching skills are positively related to the frequency of digital technology use during teaching, while critical digital skills are not. In terms of the initiation of student learning activities, instrumental and critical digital skills show relationships with initiating student learning activities that include lower cognitive engagement. Technology-related teaching skills are related to initiating learning activities that indicate higher cognitive engagement. The results show that instrumental and critical digital skills play an important role with respect to the basic use of digital technologies in the classroom, while technology-related teaching skills turn out to be crucial for more complex scenarios of digital technology use. This pattern of findings supports the predictive validity of the IN.K19+ instrument.