Effects of Gauteng province’s educators’ ICT self-efficacy on their pedagogical use of ICTS in classrooms

Abstract

The proliferation of ICT in South African basic education has not been associated with effective pedagogical uses of ICT in classrooms. While there is differential deployment of ICT as cognitive tools of instruction in South Africa's schools, the effects of educators' ICT self-efficacy on their pedagogical use of technologies is yet to be fully grasped. This research gap has been attributed to, inter alia, the lack of a detailed profile of ICT self-efficacy beliefs of educators and its effects on pedagogical uses of ICT by educators. This study employs a cross-sectional survey, adapting a structured questionnaire to investigate the relationship between purposively selected 163 Gauteng educators' ICT self-efficacy beliefs and their pedagogical use of ICT. An exploratory factor analysis on pedagogical use of ICT (PUI) revealed three factors of ‘traditional PUI’ and one ‘constructivist PUI’. Results suggest that ICT self-efficacy had a positive significant but moderate effect on the three traditional PUI and a positive significant and strong relationship with the constructivist PUI. Furthermore, a linear regression analysis found ICT self-efficacy to significantly predict all four PUI factors. The study recommends initial educator training that emphasises exposure of trainee educators to extended periods of hands-on engagement with ICTs in classroom environments. Furthermore, it recommends continuous ICT integration and the development of practicing educators with a focus on the “how to” integrate ICT tools as ‘generative’ mind tools. These interventions have potential to increase educators' ICT self-efficacy in resource constrained contexts. The implication is that educator training curricula are re-designed with an emphasis on practical lesson planning that includes ICTs as seamless resources used in the classroom in basic education.

Abstract

Education; ICT self-efficacy; Pedagogical use of ICTs; Information and communications technology