Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Digital Competencies and Ways to Acquire Those through Their Studies and Self-Organized Learning
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Thematic and Contextual Background
1.2. Research Objectives and Research Questions
1.3. Theoretical Framework
1.4. Related Work
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Research Context
2.2. Preliminaries from the Survey as Background Information for the Focus Groups
2.3. Participants in the Focus Groups
2.4. Research Instruments
2.4.1. Procedure of Data Collection
2.4.2. Procedure of Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Relevance and Status Quo
- Relevance of digital competencies in teacher education and justification;
- Experiences with digital competencies in the teachers’ program.
3.2. Self-Organized Learning of Digital Skills
- The degree to which digital skills can be self-organized and the point at which support or instruction is needed;
- The perceived limitations and obstacles of the self-learning mode;
- Examples of how self-organized learning of digital skills can be supported.
3.3. Resources for Supporting the Acquisition of Digital Skills
- Materials and resources for general education and specific subjects;
- Designing of materials and resources and responsibility for their creation;
- Organization of these resources for easy access and adaption.
3.4. Good Practices and Overcoming Problems
- Content and resources that would be particularly relevant;
- Factors to be considered when teaching digital competencies;
- Obstacles/barriers that need to be considered and how these could be overcome;
- Good practices in the teachers’ training program that successfully promote (digital) competencies.
3.5. Differences between the Two Focus Groups
4. Discussion
4.1. Discussion and Interpretations of Key Findings
- Suggested course scenarios often build upon pre-service teachers’ social collaboration, either in teams or in interactive scenarios with the whole class. This corroborates with Ryan and Deci’s Self-Determination Theory [15] dimensions of competence and relatedness as basic human needs and hence can provide a powerful motivating element in learning. The social, collaborative component also can be seen as an incentive to build significant learning communities [49] on the theme of a (subset of) digital and social competencies.
- Pre-service teachers wish that teacher educators had a high level of digital competencies that they could pass on to them, an issue also addressed by Masoumi and Noroozi [42]. However, pre-service teachers seem to recognize that teacher educators might not manage to keep up to date with every new tool or device. Thus, pre-service teachers tend to appreciate highly interactive scenarios that include ‘teacher-students’ who are expected to invest time in mastering selected new tools and passing on their skills and knowledge to students as well as teacher educators who act as facilitators [20] or moderators in interactive sessions and aim to have the “big picture” exposed and reflected in the course.
4.2. Limitations and Perspectives
4.3. Contribution and Impact on Theory/Research and Practice
4.4. Further Work
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
References
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Definition | # | Illustrative Statements from the Focus Groups’ Participants |
---|---|---|
Theme “Relevance and Status Quo” | ||
Participants’ attitudes toward and proficiency regarding digital skills | 12 | “At both [schools], they have smartboards, and therefore it does make sense if someone feels overwhelmed with them if they haven’t worked with them ever before”. ”To know how to work with digital devices is just the same as knowing how to effectively work with projectors, laptops, etc., the smartboard counts to that group“. ”I know that [Moodle] only from the user’s perspective!” “Digital skills are very relevant as they are necessary in the daily work as a teacher”. At university, you only learn things that are not practical for the life of a teacher. We do know how the programs work, however, there is a lack of courses that teach you how to pass on this knowledge”. |
Theme “Self-organized learning of digital skills” | ||
Participants’ experience with and perceived limitations of self-organized learning of digital competencies | 12 | “Digital tools may have been touched upon in courses, and may have been used, but the right occupation with them, the acquisition itself happens in a self-organized way”. “In a group, it’s just more fun to exchange ideas and talk about them, then the students and teachers have more motivation to get involved”. “Of course, I can teach myself how to use a tool, however, I will never know for sure, whether I use it properly, or whether there is more to know than the stage I know. Moreover, it would be good to know how to mediate this self-acquired knowledge. One would simply feel more confident and prepared”. |
Theme “Resources for supporting the acquisition of digital skills” | ||
Any resources (materials, tools, devices) participants considered important for acquiring digital skills and teaching them at secondary level | 16 | “Longer access to literature would certainly not be bad, also in terms of access to other resources, including other literature [i.e., beyond that used in some course]”. “Maybe it even needs professionally created [tutorial] videos”. “Especially, one should learn how to organize oneself with the help of digital tools”. “It would be desirable to have something like a toolkit, where I have several tools ready to use in the classroom. One would be more prepared and well-equipped to use digital tools if one had been trained in these tools”. |
Theme “Good practices and overcoming problems” | ||
Participants’ perspectives on practices and means that proved helpful for the acquisition of digital skills during the teacher educationprogramincluding any ideas on how to overcome obstacles | 44 | “I think it [learning digital competencies] goes well in lectures that more or less everyone attends, and also in seminars, where you are told which tools are available […] and a list is issued, which tools are where. Then, for example, the programs are explored in groups and then explained to the others like a presentation, where there is also room for discussion and where you can ask questions. But there might also be a need for freedom, so you don’t have to attend every session, but, like every second session, you meet and then discuss what you learned in self-study last week”. “Centralized seminars, which are done via digital mediation programs, where students can click through […] without the need for a ’real’ teacher because I don’t know many people who could teach it”. “The knowledge that you gained beforehand in the lecture is then again needed in the follow-up seminar, which means you could then link it if you say, okay, teach it to yourself digitally beforehand using the tools without the need for everyone being back in the lecture hall and afterward you do a seminar that goes into more depth”. |
Theme “Others” | ||
Statements not related to the research questions | 31 | - |
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Göltl, K.; Ambros, R.; Dolezal, D.; Motschnig, R. Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Digital Competencies and Ways to Acquire Those through Their Studies and Self-Organized Learning. Educ. Sci. 2024, 14, 951. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090951
Göltl K, Ambros R, Dolezal D, Motschnig R. Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Digital Competencies and Ways to Acquire Those through Their Studies and Self-Organized Learning. Education Sciences. 2024; 14(9):951. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090951
Chicago/Turabian StyleGöltl, Katrin, Roland Ambros, Dominik Dolezal, and Renate Motschnig. 2024. "Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Digital Competencies and Ways to Acquire Those through Their Studies and Self-Organized Learning" Education Sciences 14, no. 9: 951. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci14090951