Teacher educators’ and pre-service teachers’ confidence toward the use of ICT in education

Abstract

Todays’ teacher education needs to provide pre-service teachers with readiness to integrate ICT in education. Teacher educators are expected to serve as role models for pre-service teachers, providing them with examples and meaningful experiences of learning with ICT. The aim of this study is to provide an insight into teacher educators’ and pre-service teachers’ confidence toward using ICT in education. In this study, both groups assessed their Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK). The aim was to study the possible differences between teacher educators’ and pre-service teachers’ TPK assessments, and based on their assessments, to provide insights into teacher educators’ readiness to act as role models for pre-service teachers. The participants of the study were 123 pre-service teachers and 83 teacher educators. The results indicate that the assessments of teacher educators were higher than pre-service teachers’ assessments at the sample level. The results also indicate that pre-service teachers and teacher educators can both be divided into two aligning sub-groups, with higher and lower assessments. However, the comparison of these sub-groups showed that the assessments of the pre-service teachers in the higher sub-group were higher than with the assessments of the teacher educators in the lower (modest) sub-group. This study provides evidence for variation among teacher educators and pre-service teachers in terms of their TPK. This implies a need for more tailored ways to develop TPK in teacher education.