Investigating pre‐service early childhood teachers’ views and intentions about integrating and using computers in early childhood settings: compilation of an instrument

Abstract

This paper discusses the compilation of an instrument in order to investigate pre‐service early childhood teachers’ views and intentions about integrating and using computers in early childhood settings. For the purpose of this study a questionnaire was compiled and administered to 258 pre‐service early childhood teachers (PECTs), in Greece. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted and a one‐factor model was accepted. Our results revealed very strong links between PECTs’ views and intentions, being indistinguishable. Students expressed positive views‐intentions and this constitutes one way forward towards the integration of information and communications technology in the classroom. From the path analysis model, direct and indirect links were shown between PECTs’ views‐intentions and the year of study as well as other computer use‐related variables. Year of study and computer self‐efficacy had a significant effect on PECTs’ views‐intentions. Access to a computer at home had an indirect impact on PECTs’ views‐intentions via computer self‐efficacy and years of experience with computers.