Session Information
16 SES 02 A, Teacher Education
Paper Session
Contribution
The digital age has been upon us since 1989 (Stengel, 2017). Still, adapting to it is a continuous challenge across European countries (European Commission, 2024). In Germany, about one-third of 8th graders in Germany only show rudimentary ICT competence levels (Eickelmann et al., 2019). German pre-service teachers hold less favorable attitudes than students from other programs (Behrens et al., 2017) and most pre-service teachers do not meet the basic requirements of ICT competence levels defined by experts (Senkbeil et al., 2020). Even though respective German experts largely share a consensus about the importance of empowering teachers professionally with digital competencies (vbw, 2017; SWK, 2022), 20% of higher education curricula do not consider digital competencies (Monitor Lehrerbildung, 2022a). Therefore, action is needed to improve digital attitudes and competencies in pre-service teachers.
As a transitory means to implement relevant and innovative objectives and content areas in higher education curricula for pre-service teachers in Germany, extra-credit courses are offered as additionally certified qualification opportunities (Monitor Lehrerbildung, 2022b). One of those opportunities is subject to this contribution. It was developed as an intervention in the context of a joint research project, which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany and addresses competencies based on the European DigCompEdu framework (Redecker & Punie, 2017). It consists of a basic and three compulsory elective modules (Vocational Orientation, Democracy Education, Education for Sustainable Development). The basic module consists of ten according elements, e.g., basic technological knowledge (TK), technological-content-knowledge (TCK), technological-pedagogical-knowledge (TPK), legal implications etc.
Several studies have been made about the effects of different interventions based on the DigCompEdu (see Haşlaman et al., 2023). However, there are only few that address a longitudinal perspective and none that consider test-based rather than self-reported indicators for competencies. The complementation of self-reported by test-based indicators to measure competence is important, e.g, because self-reported and test-based competencies only share a weak link (Drummond & Sweeney, 2017; Lachner et al., 2019) and especially low-performing students tend to overestimate themselves (Max et al., 2022). In summary, the main research question is: How does the intervention impact pre-service teacher’s digital attitudes, self-reported and test-based competencies? The main objective is to discuss the results and share insights that might inspire similar projects to optimize their process and results.
Method
To examine the research questions and to contribute to the main objective, data from a pre-post design is used in which pre-service teachers voluntarily enrolled in an extra-credit course about teaching in the digital age with the incentive of an according certification. All pre-service teachers at the local university have been invited to enroll in the intervention via several channels. The total work scope is approximately 210 hours, which are spent over a flexible time span of up to two years. 242 pre-service teachers registered for the intervention. As of now, 22 have completed it which makes the sample for preliminary results. They are 23.45 ± 3.23 years old and 86.4% female. 14 are from the B. Ed. and 8 from the M. Ed. program. They responded to twenty different validated measures for digital (1) attitudes, e.g., Hawlitschek & Fredrich (2018), (2) self-reported, e.g., Rubach & Lazarides (2019) and (3) test-based competencies, e.g., Lachner et al. (2019) in a pre-post design. Due to the small sample size, nonparametric testing (Wilcoxon-signed-rank test) was applied in the preliminary analysis. However, for parametric testing, a considerably larger sample size is anticipated until the final submission.
Expected Outcomes
The preliminary results across all measures taken show that only self-reports on TCK (r = .55; p = .009) and negative attitudes towards the use of digital media in teaching (r = -.45; p = .035) show significant differences. Hence, the results suggest so far that the intervention had a positive impact on their belief to be able to use digital technologies in their future teaching practices for their respective school subjects and their motivation to use digital media in their future teaching practices. However, the effects on attitudes and self-reports seem rather weak because most mean differences in other measures are insignificant. Also, the results on test-based competencies imply that the students did not progress in their actual knowledge about digital media and its use for teaching practices. These overall limited effects and practical implications will be further analyzed and discussed.
References
Drummond, A., & Sweeney, T. (2017). Can an objective measure of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) supplement existing TPACK measures? British Journal of Educational Technology, 48(4), 928–939. Eickelmann, B., Bos, W., & Labusch, A. (2019). Die Studie ICILs 2018 im Überblick. Zentrale Ergebnisse und mögliche Entwicklungsperspektiven. Waxmann. European Commission. (2021). Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027). https://education.ec.europa.eu/de/focus-topics/digital-education/action-plan Haşlaman, T., Atman Uslu, N., & Mumcu, F. (2023). Development and in-depth investigation of pre-service teachers’ digital competencies based on DigCompEdu: a case study. Quality & Quantity, 1–26. Hawlitschek, A., & Fredrich, H. (2018). Die Einstellungen der Studierenden als Herausforderung für das Lehren und Lernen mit digitalen Medien in der wissenschaftlichen Weiterbildung. Zeitschrift Hochschule und Weiterbildung, (1), 9-16. Lachner, A., Backfisch, I., & Stürmer, K. (2019). A test-based approach of modeling and measuring technological pedagogical knowledge. Computers & Education, 142, 103645. Max, A. L., Lukas, S., & Weitzel, H. (2022). The relationship between self-assessment and performance in learning TPACK: Are self-assessments a good way to support preservice teachers’ learning? Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 38(4), 1160–1172. Monitor Lehrerbildung. (2022a). Curriculare Verankerung von Inhalten zu Medienkompetenz in einer digitalen Welt. https://www.monitor-lehrerbildung.de/diagramme/curriculare-verankerung-von-inhalten-zu-medienkompetenz-in-einer-digitalen-welt/ Monitor Lehrerbildung. (2022b). Zertifikatsangebote an Hochschulen. https://www.monitor-lehrerbildung.de/diagramme/zertifikatsangebote-an-hochschulen/ Redecker, C., & Punie, Y. (2017). European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators: DigCompEdu. European Commission. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC107466 https://doi.org/10.2760/159770 Rubach, C., & Lazarides, R. (2019). Eine Skala zur Selbsteinschätzung digitaler Kompetenzen bei Lehramtsstudierenden. Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung, 9(3), 345-374. Schmid, U., Goertz, L., Radomski, S., Thom, S., & Behrens, J. (2017). Monitor Digitale Bildung: Die Hochschulen im digitalen Zeitalter. mmb Institut; Bertelsmann Stiftung. https://doi.org/10.11586/2017014 Senkbeil, M., Ihme, J. M., & Schöber, C. (2020). Empirische Arbeit: Schulische Medienkompetenzförderung in einer digitalen Welt: Über welche digitalen Kompetenzen verfügen angehende Lehrkräfte? Psychologie in Erziehung Und Unterricht, 68(1), 4–22. Stengel, O., van Looy, A., & Wallaschkowski, S. (2017). Digitalzeitalter - Digitalgesellschaft: Das Ende des Industriezeitalters und der Beginn einer neuen Epoche. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-16509-3 Ständige wissenschaftliche Kommission der Kultusministerkonferenz. (2022). Digitalisierung im Bildungssystem: Handlungsempfehlungen von der Kita bis zur Hochschule. Gutachten der Ständigen Wissenschaftlichen Kommission der Kultusministerkonferenz (SWK). https://doi.org/10.25656/01:25273 vbw - Vereinigung der Bayerischen Wirtschaft e. V. (2017). Bildung 2030 – veränderte Welt. Fragen an die Bildungspolitik. Waxmann. https://doi.org/10.25656/01:14542
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