attitudes and competence: connectionsAdmittedly, having positive attitudes toward technology does not inevitably contribute to a change in behavior to integrate technology more in the classroom, or in a better way (Belland 2009). In other words, teachers may still choose not to use it in the classroom even if they have highly positive attitudes. Other variables may also influence teachers’ actual behavior, including their competence. Thus, it is not surprising that perceived digital competences of student teachers toward digital technologies were less positive than their attitudes. For example, over one-third of prospective teachers were not highly confident about their ability to create and modify digital resources. Moreover, half of the future teachers especially did not know how to facilitate learners with special needs. As Florian (2004: 18) argued, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) offer both opportunities and challenges to learners with special needs. Technology can be used to reduce the effects of possible barriers to learning or participation for students with impairments, but student teachers, without any exposure to this issue, may feel overwhelmed by the challenges of making special adaptations for these learners to have access to technology. These concerns about their competence may pose a direct obstacle to transferring their upbeat attitudes into actions. Certainly, there is also a strong call for teacher education to showcase the didactic potentials of digital technologies as a basis for transferring competence into actual behavior.
The correlation and regression analysis showed that prospective teachers’ perceptions of their digital competence were closely related to their attitudes and these perceptions have a strong influence on their attitudes – and vice versa. This finding is in line with the previous research on in-service teachers (Jegede et al. 2007; Kibirige 2011). More specifically, student teachers who participated in our survey and perceived themselves as capable of facilitating learners’ digital competence have more positive digital attitudes. Those who have positive personal feelings and a high willingness to use digital technologies have better self-perceptions of their digital competence. The findings suggest that prospective teachers may become more positive toward digital technologies if they know how to help their learners to improve their digital competence, or see the actual positive change of their learners for themselves. Besides, the change in one’s personal feelings and willingness to use digital technologies causes a shift in his or her perceived digital competence.
gender influencesGender also seems to be an important influencing factor regarding attitudes toward digital technologies. Female participants tend to have less favorable attitudes toward digital technologies. This finding is in line with the study done by Cai et al. (2017). They conducted a meta-analysis of 50 articles on gender differences in the attitude toward technology use from 1997 to 2014. Their results showed that males still held a more positive attitude toward technology use than females and that there was only minimal reduction in the gender attitudinal gap. In terms of perceived digital competence, although there is no significant difference between female and male students in general in our study, men still had a better self-perception about their ability to deal with digital resources, promoting their professional engagement with digital technologies as well as facilitating learners’ digital competence. The results indicate that some form of digital divide may also exist in the form of a gender gap. It would be difficult, however, to find exact reasons for such a gap, and it might be possible that respondents are transporting gender-specific socializations into their questionnaires – thus reproducing stereotypes they hold about attitudes and self-perceptions with regard to technology. Since gender-specific self-perceptions seem to prevail, it will remain important for teacher education not to reproduce such gender-digital divides, challenge them whenever they become visible, and increase self-efficacy in the use of digital technologies irrespective of gender ascriptions.
years of experience: a critical compassInterestingly, it was also found that student teachers with no or less than one year of pre-service training had more positive views than students who received more than one year of teacher training. This finding suggests that pre-service teachers tend to develop more doubts about the usefulness and convenience of digital technologies as they receive more teacher training. They also had better self-perceptions of digital competence, though the result was not significant. Another similar interesting result was found by Instefjord and Munthe (2017). In their research regarding how pre-service teachers perceived the education program they received in the final year of their four-year program with an emphasis on digital competence, they found these student teachers were fairly critical of the program, but favorable toward their competence. Such a finding suggests that – with years of training and experience – teachers develop an increasingly reflective and critical compass for orientation in the field of digital education, without rejecting technology per se.
4 Implications for Teacher Education and Teacher Development
The emergence of the DigCompEdu framework as a European initiative – as well as the results of the empirical study presented in this article – indicate that the digital competence of educators will continue to remain a significant concern and field of action within teacher education both globally and nationally. This tendency is mirrored, for example, in other documents such as the strategy paper Bildung in der digitalen Welt of the German KMK, or the Chinese Education Informatization 2.0 Action Plan. To bring the digital competence of educators to life effectively, several implications can be mapped out which are based on the introduction into the DigCompEdu framework and the empirical results of the study with pre-service teachers offered in this article.
life-long professionalization(1) The digital competence of educators is part and parcel of a life-long professional development. On one level, this is because digital learning and teaching is most likely not a “trend” that will disappear, but a dimension of education that will become increasingly integral to schools and classrooms. On another level, the digital world is constantly shifting and changing, with ever new developments. Not only do these shifts mark the need to stay up-to-date. More importantly, they stress the need for teachers to have a critical compass in their professional repertoire that helps them judge the value and usefulness of digital tools and resources (rather than embracing each new development in an instant and euphoric frenzy).
preparing future teachers at university(2) The study has shown that pre-service EFL teachers, i.e. the teachers of the future, bring important initial stepping stones towards a more full-fledged digital competence into their professional development. Their generally high positive attitudes towards digital education, and their favorable command over digital tools based on their self-assessment, indicate a valuable professional trajectory that can be developed further with hands-on experience, critical reflection and a self-monitoring of one’s own progress. Certainly, this is also a call to action directed at teacher education programs at universities where the potentials of digital education can be discovered with student teachers.
future directions for EFL teaching and learning(3) Even though the DigCompEdu is in itself not an EFL-specific framework, the diversity of descriptors, articulations of sub-dimensions, and concrete examples are a good starting point for a more rigorous transfer into EFL education. Such a transfer must consider that digital competences are no stand-alone competences as if they were somehow unrelated to EFL education, neatly compartmentalized in a ‘separate box’. Instead, we argue that they must be seen as transversal, cutting across key concerns
