2.5.1. The Roles of ICT Courses as Part of University Programmes

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From very different educational contexts utilising different research designs, some common factors can be observed in the field of ICT inclusion into university education. The most frequently mentioned one centres around providing experimenting possibilities for learners towards technology integration into their study processes in preferably all types of university programmes (Hismanoglu, 2012a; Liu, 2009; Sang et al., 2010). Moreover, learners should be able to access technology-inclusive courses taught by expert teachers (Graham et al., 2012; Tsai & Chai, 2012) in order that they become role models for the students (Aşık et al., 2020; Graham et al., 2012; Tezci, 2011) who can contribute to alter their beliefs long-lastingly about technology inclusion. Some studies also suggest that implication is best if it is part of students’ specific fields of studies (Graham et al., 2012; Tondeur et al., 2016).

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To find out about the predictors of prospective teacher behaviours towards technology use, Sang and colleagues (2010) designed a study involving 727 participants from Chinese primary teacher education programmes. The participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire consisting of five scales: 1) constructivist teaching beliefs, 2) teacher self-efficacy, 3) computer self-efficacy, 4) computer attitudes, and 5) prospective computer use. The researchers also proposed that gender could be a background variable that played a role in technology use. Sang and colleagues (2010) then applied path analysis on the data pool, illustrated in Figure 3.
 

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Figure 3 Path Coefficients of the Predictors of Prospective Teacher Behaviours Towards Technology Use
Note. Sang et al. (2010, p. 108).
 

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The results of the study (consult Figure 3) managed to produce evidence that prospective ICT use is predicted by what attitudes learners hold towards ICT integration into their learning processes, their computer self-efficacy, the efficacy of teaching as well as promoting constructivist beliefs of teaching (Sang et al., 2010). This suggests that the more experienced prospective teachers are about technology, the more likely that they would find it important and would be willing to include it in their practices. Furthermore, in the given educational context, gender proved not to be a predictive factor of ICT use. This is perhaps because in today’s world, ICT inclusion is generally advocated and is not limited to gender, educational level, institution type, etc. A major implication of the study was to encourage confidence-building through many opportunities at experimenting with technology in real-life teaching situations (Sang et al., 2010), for example as part of teaching methodology or microteaching classes as well as during learners’ on-site teaching practice.

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To have a comprehensive understanding of the ICT use of 1,898 Turkish pre-service teachers from 18 universities, Tezci (2011) surveyed their ICT experience, attitude, perceived self-confidence, school climate and support. The results found that the pre-service teachers expressed difficulty in integrating technology into their future teaching practices because their levels of ICT use were very low; however, the mean averages of familiarity with technology and the Internet were high (Tezci, 2011). This points towards the necessity of explicitly including ICT in the methodological training of prospective teachers as opposed to offering no, or too general training opportunities in the form of ICT classes not linked to the specific majors of the learners (Tezci, 2011). These goals could be reached faster if inclusion were effective and pedagogically reasoned for, what is more, if students had the chance to follow certain role models who could contribute to enriching their techno-pedagogical knowledge dimensions (Aşık et al., 2020; Dringó-Horváth & Gonda, 2018; Graham et al., 2012; Kárpáti, 2012; Molnár, 2011; Tezci, 2011).

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For teachers to become role models, they need to access developmental opportunities. To find out to what extent teachers’ TPACK dimensions were affected by a specific technological methodological training course, Graham and colleagues (2012) set out to develop a coding system to trace technological knowledge (TK), technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK), and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) in the task rationales produced by primary teacher education majors. The study was carried out in the US context and involved 133 participants. The method used was comparing pre- and post-course rationales the informants wrote to certain ICT activities to be implemented in their classrooms. Throughout the semester, informants enrolled in a TPACK-focused ICT methodology course. After a semester of enrolment, it was found that codes relating to technological knowledge lowered by 8.7% in the rationales, while technological pedagogical knowledge-related codes rose by 72.2% and TPACK codes rose by 158.5% (Graham et al., 2012, p. 11). Raters also observed a quality change in the depth and length of the rationales. It was also found that respondents’ rationales still sometimes remained technology-focused with such arguments as technology should be included because it is fun and entertaining for the learners, whereas inclusion should be pedagogically motivated and the cheerful learning atmosphere resulting from using technology should be a consequence rather than a rationale for inclusion (Graham et al., 2012). Implications of this study concern the necessity of technology-oriented courses in teacher education programmes: technology courses should be included when learners already had some subject methodology focused training, it should be linked to their majors and the course should vest students with the conceptual underpinnings of technology inclusion as well as provide hands-on opportunities to experiment with technology in a reflective environment. It is also strongly recommended that ICT courses are taught by experts of the field, who could not only reflect on technology’s role, but are also able to reason for the detailed planning of ICT inclusive classes.

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Students enrolled in teacher education programmes arguably receive more and more ICT training. To follow-up whether beginning teachers are ready to professionally include technology in their own teaching practices once they graduate from university, Tondeur and colleagues (2016) used a longitudinal research design in the Belgian primary educational context. The six participants were followed for five years in total, out of which the first three were their pre-service training years, and an additional two years of their own teaching practice. They found that the informants’ attitudes towards ICT inclusion remained positive, but they most often used technology to deliver instructions (e.g., PPT slideshows) and project exercises, while the more complex and learner-centred use of technology such as project participation was less often mentioned (Tondeur et al., 2016). Technology inclusive lessons “were limited and traditional” (Tondeur et al., 2016, p. 16). Even though the participants were purposively selected based on their skills and general attitudes towards technology, it seems that the phenomenon of “reality shock” (Tondeur et al., 2016, p. 16) greatly affected them; they found it very hard to take up a full-time teaching practice and simultaneously invest great efforts into learner-centred ICT integration while being new colleagues in an already well-established school environment. It was also observed that teachers mainly remained users of the exact technologies they learned about during their pre-service years, and even those opportunities were rather limited in scope (Tondeur et al., 2016). A possible way to overcome this is to integrate ICT methodological training into as many teaching methodology classes as possible and foster learner-centred, collaborative (e.g., task, activity, or lesson plan) design experiences, and to support students to develop an inner need for continuous professional development.

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The quality of technology inclusion in such training courses is also of utmost importance. In a Turkish, Portuguese, and Polish transnational project on ICT integration in EFL teacher education programmes, Aşık and colleagues (2020) reviewed different strategies of technology inclusion. They sought answers how well the teacher trainees and teacher educators perceive the programme prepares future teachers for ICT inclusion as well as what implementation strategies teacher educators use in their training courses to ensure this goal in a mixed methods (questionnaire and interview) study. The study involved 80, 40 and 30 pre-service teacher informants from the Turkish, Polish, and Portuguese contexts, respectively. Additionally, three teacher educators of each context participated in the study. In total, the data pool collected based on six questionnaire scales were compared between the countries involved in the project: 1) role model, 2) reflection, 3) instructional design, 4) collaboration, 5) authentic experiences, and 6) feedback. Data analysis confirmed that the only statistically significant difference between the contexts concerned role models: Turkish results showed significantly lower mean scores both the Turkish-Portuguese and Turkish-Polish contexts regarding the role model scale (Aşık et al., 2020). This signals that in the given context, Polish and Portuguese teacher trainers managed to emerge as better role models, and the importance of examples to be followed have been confirmed many times in the discourse (Aşık et al., 2020; Graham et al., 2012; Tezci, 2011). Results also imply that more hands-on technology experiences should be provided for learners and “experiential learning cycles” should be encouraged (Aşık et al., 2020, p. 20), where prospective teachers have the chance to collaboratively design and try out technological tools, and technology-based activities, tasks, or lesson plans.

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Consequently, technology-inclusive courses can have several added benefits as part of university instruction irrespective of the specific field of studies (Hismanoglu, 2012a; Liu, 2009; Sang et al., 2010). There seems to be an agreement between scholars that such classes should be instructed by experts (Graham et al., 2012; Tsai & Chai, 2012). By inclusion, students might not only benefit from the course content, but from having been instructed by prospective role models, portraying pedagogically reasoned, expert use of technology in their respective field of studies (Aşık et al., 2020; Graham et al., 2012; Tezci, 2011). What remains a question, still, is to what extent these training opportunities contribute to learners’ changing mindsets about inclusion in the long run because even though their digital competences most likely develop, it is not widely researched to what extent it results in competency development, too.
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