Revista Electrónica de Investigación Educativa

Vol. 8, No. 2, 2006

Teacher-training in Informatics and its
Transfer to the Classroom: A Study in the
Province of Buenos Aires

Rubén Darío Martínez Vidal   (*)
rdmarti@mdp.edu.ar

Yolanda Haydeé Montero Mauro   (*)
ymontero@mdp.edu.ar

María Eugenia Pedrosa Borrini   (*)
mpedrosa@mdp.edu.ar

Elsa Inés Martin Jukna   (*)
eimartin@mdp.edu.ar

*  Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales
Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata

Funes 3350
7600, Mar del Plata, Argentina

(Received: September 8, 2005; accepted for publishing: August 10, 2006)

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate some factors that may be related to the degree to which the skills developed by in-service teachers during a computer course, are or are not transferred to the classroom. The course was oriented toward the pedagogical use of the computer, including the design of student-centered activities. The data, collected one academic year after the course ended, revealed different levels of transfer. The study examined the effect on the level of implementation of student-centered activities, with variables such as age, personal assessment of the training, access to a computer at home, attitudes toward computers, experience with computers, and perceived self-efficacy. The results showed that in the classroom, perceived self-efficacy was the most important predictor of the level of implementation for activities supported by the computer.

Introduction

One of the purposes of basic general education (BGE) is to give students an array of relevant knowledge that will permit them to face the challenges of their times (Giroux, 1990; MCyEN, 1995, Sancho, 1996). It is widely recognized that computers, and speaking more generally, computing and communication technologies, are producing significant changes that have an impact, directly or indirectly, on all social sectors and human activities. Nevertheless, the inclusion of these technologies in Argentina’s BGE appears to lag rather far behind. In the Municipality of General Pueyrredon, and in the Province of Buenos Aires as a whole, the integration of the computer into public education—with few exceptions—remains virtually absent—or at best, usually occupies an isolated and marginal space. Probably the main reason for this situation lies in the erratic nature and the discontinuity of the policies followed by the different political and educational authorities. Indeed, the salient characteristic that unifies the various computer-training programs developed in that province is the lack of project continuity, as if they perished after the completion of training (Martinez, Montero and Pedrosa, 2002).

The research reported in this paper was conducted during the school year immediately following the completion of an optional training course, taken by BGE in-service teachers from schools run by the Municipality of General Pueyrredon, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was dictated by pedagogically high and technically-experienced teachers of the National University of Mar del Plata. The ultimate goal was for teachers to construct customized projects, which voluntarily had be put into practice with their students after the course was completed.

The central theme of this study focuses on analyzing the degree of implementation of such projects, including factors that could have been related to transferring them to the classroom. It is important to emphasize that the schools under study in this project presented quite a homogeneous panorama: they are located on the outskirts of the city, in neighborhoods where various basic needs are unsatisfied and school equipment is quite modest. In saying this we want to emphasize that before and after the training we took a realistic approach to the situation, and therefore, tandem training/implementation was thought of as a first step—modest, certainly—that would point toward incorporating the use of computer into schools.

I. Theoretical framework

For teachers in service, the introduction of technology poses a number of challenges that requiring the mastery of different skills, given that incorporating it alters the normal dynamics of their work (Lumpe and Chambers, 2001). In the municipality in which this work was developed, there are studies reporting that although teachers may have positive attitudes, they clearly encounter serious difficulties when trying to incorporate the computer into their daily activities (Martínez , Astiz, Medina, Montero and Pedrosa, 1998). Their problems have little to do with the lack of convergence between the software available and their needs as users (Bannon, 1990), or with the ways to attach meanings to technology (MacKenzie, 1996); these problems have deeper roots, which largely stem from the school organization itself.

When in due course there are no clear, consistent and continuing government plans that can, even in modest ways, incorporate technology into the school, the actors are trapped in the imperceptible and persistent presence of a school culture still adapted to past situations (Berger and Luckman, 1984, Douglas, 1996). However, there is a dialectical relationship between the institution’s culture and the actors’ intent, which enables the school to have a space of relative autonomy, even in cases where there is a marked scarcity of resources and technological support, such as the present one (Díaz Barriga, 1994)

The literature registers a multitude of variables associated with the adoption of technology: the most important being such things as attitudes toward computers, level of experience with technology, beliefs concerning self-efficacy, age 10 and, computer ownership (Lumpe and Chambers, 2001; Ross, Hogaboam-Gray and Hannay, 1999). Gender is another variable of note, and also has received much attention; it has not, however, been included in this study because in the context where the investigation was carried out, all the teachers are women (something very common in the GBE all over Argentina).

Among the factors which have been studied in relation to the incorporation of technology into classroom teaching work, the first set of variables considered was evaluation of training received, age of teacher, ease of access to computer, and evaluation of the work context (Fabry and Higgs, 1997; Marcinkiewicz, 1993, Ross et al., 1999). Of these factors, the one most studied has been the relationship between age and computer use. It has been shown that there are differences in attitudes toward computers based on the subject’s age, although this is influenced by several factors, among which some of the most outstanding are level of education and experience (Dyck and Smither, 1994). There is evidence that adults need to feel confident in their own abilities in order to learn to use technology and to be open to a broader explanation of the possible uses which might be of interest, as a precondition to the training process (Zhang and Espinoza, 1997). In general, although they perceive working with technology as less comfortable, and feel they have less control over it, there are studies showing that as subjects of all ages gain experience, their attitudes are modifiable (Czaja and Sharit, 1998).

Computer experience, attitudes toward the environment, and the self-efficacy perceived by teachers are a second set of factors to which greater importance is often attached than to those indicated in the preceding paragraph. The literature records a complex interrelationship between these variables, as well as assigning them a possible predictive value for the transfer of technology to the classroom (Albion, 2001, Delcourt and Kinzie, 1993; Hignite and Echternacht, 1992; Vannatta and Fordham, 2004) room.

Self-efficacy has been associated with attitudes (Zubrow, 1987, Yan and Piper, 2003), related to the decision to sign up for computer courses (Hill and Mann, 1987), and is considered as a predictor for the adoption of the computer (Pajares, 1996, Piper and Austin, 2004, Yi and Im, 2005), and also with the anxiety or fear of using that medium (Houle, 1996).

Attitudes act as a factor in understanding level of frequency and success in computer use (Karsten and Roth, 1998; Khorrami-Arani, 2001). Attitudes, principally toward usefulness, have been pointed out as predictors of the desire to learn; and self-efficacy, in turn, has acted as a predictor of readiness to learn complex skills (Zhang and Espinoza, 1997 and 1998).

It has been noted that self-efficacy has been predictive of the subject’s commitment to the computer, and that these experiences affect future use insofar as it increases the level of perceived self-efficacy (Kinzie, Delacourte and Powers, 1994).

Attitudes are psychological tendencies expressed in the evaluation of a particular entity as having some degree of favor or disfavor, and where the assessment can be open, covert, cognitive, affective or behavioral (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993). Attitudes toward computers have been extensively studied. These attitudes can be partially predictive of the adoption or rejection of this electronic medium in the subject’s routine tasks.

One of the instruments most used in educational research for measuring attitudes toward computers (Woodrow, 1991, Gardner, Discenza, and Dukes, 1993) is the Computer Attitude Scale (Loyd and Gressard, 1984; Gressard and Loyd, 1986); since it has demonstrated its validity and reliability in a variety of situations (Dyck and Smither, 1994; Kluever, Lam, Hoffman, Green and Swearingen, 1994; Shashaani, 1994; Busch, 1995; Gabriel and MacDonald, 1996, Jennings and Onwubgeuzie, 2001).

Perceived self-efficacy refers to individuals’ personal judgments concerning their capacities for action in a particular type of task, and is closely linked to expectations of success. Moreover, it is related with the concepts of competence and attitude, but unlike overall perceptions that apply to many situations, self-efficacy usually refers to specific judgments on concrete situations (Bandura, 1987, 1992, Pajares, 1996; Pajares and Schunk, 2002).

Efficacy beliefs are developed on the basis of four sources of information (Wang, Ertmer and Newby, 2004):

II. Objective

The objective of the research here reported, focused on analyzing a set of factors that could be related, directly or indirectly, to the degree of classroom implementation of the proposals made by the teachers themselves during training. The variables considered were:

III. Method

3.1. Participants

This research involved 109 teachers of basic general education (BGE) from the schools of the Municipality of General Pueyrredon, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The teachers were part of a cohort of 131 educators who voluntarily attended and successfully passed a training course on the educational use of simple computer resources (in essence, general operation, use of elementary word processing, and Internet searches), given by professors from the Mar del Plata National University.

IV. Results

The first part of the results indicated in this section is focused on the level of implementation of the proposal, and its relationship with different factors considered in this study.

4.1. Degree of implementation

The proposal developed during the training could be implemented in its entirety by only 18 teachers (16.5%); 49 carried out a partial implementation (45%), while the remaining 42 teachers (38.5%) did not ask with the computer in the development of their classes throughout the entire school year after training. Figure 1 shows this information.

4.10. Attitudes and experience

Table X shows the overall average values of the attitudes toward computers exhibited by groups who had different experience with this technology.

V. Analysis

In the present case, and as usual, according to the legal-bureaucratic framework of education in the provincial and municipal environments, teachers have no obligation, no incentive or support to carry out in their daily work those changes that are supposedly the primary objective of the training being reported. Figure 1 shows that in a significant percentage there was no transfer of what was proposed in the training. This occurred even though the reporting period came immediately after the conclusion of the course in which teachers were very much aware of what they had learned, and in general, of a certain enthusiasm. However, even under such unfavorable conditions, some teachers were able to implement their proposals, either wholly or in part, while others were not. What factors may be linked to this disparity? Below is a brief review of the results obtained, which can approach some tentative answers.

The first point to consider was whether teachers who implemented different degrees of the proposal (null, partial, complete) had assessed the training differently. Table I and the attached data show that this did not happen. The difficulty of the course was considered as slightly above average, while the quality of the course was rated as very good.

Two factors which the literature registers as possible influences for the incorporation of the computer into education are the age of the teacher and her access to the computer at home. The calculations corresponding to Table II indicate that there are no significant differences in the average age of the teachers who effected different levels of implementation. Moreover, the highest average age was found in the group who implemented the proposal in its entirety.

As to the impact of computer access at home, the crossing of data is shown in Table III. The accompanying calculations exhibit some directionality, in the sense that the differences in the frequency expected and those observed, as concerning the degree of implementation of the proposals, are favorable to those with computer access. However, neither clear trends nor important significance are seen in those differences. This would indicate to us that although the presence of the computer at home can be a positive factor, but it is by no means decisive.

Another variable we took into account is the work context in which the teacher finds himself. When during the training, teachers produced the proposals that would be implemented with their students, they adjusted these proposals according to their expectations regarding the conditions they might find in their work context. The relationship between the context they found vs. the one they expected is shown in Table IV, for the three levels of implementation. Calculations indicate that the context found was slightly worse than expected (values less than the unit) and there is some directionality in these differences; that is, the smaller the gap between what is expected and what was actually found, the higher the level of implementation. However, as indicated by the corresponding calculations, these differences lack statistical significance. Therefore, one cannot infer that unexpected deterioration or improvement of work contexts has been influential in the different degrees of transferring training to the classroom.

Important factors associated with teachers’ degree of willingness to incorporate technology into their classroom work, are: experience in using computers, attitudes and self-efficacy. We analyzed the results obtained, considering each of these variables.

The data in Table V and their accompanying calculations indicate no significant differences concerning the implementation of the proposal, between groups with varying degrees of computer experience. A study of attitudes allowed us to corroborate clear positive correlations between the four subscales.

As for their relationship with the degree of implementation: the overall results and those differentiated by size are condensed in Table VI. In that table it is possible to observe some directionality in the sense of increasing positive attitudes, according to the proposal’s degree of implementation. However, the calculations show that these differences have no statistical significance. In general terms the table shows positive attitudes in all cases (over 2, neutral value); these probably can be explained by the fact that the training course was optional, and if so, it is not unreasonable to assume that, at least, teachers’ attitudes toward computers were not negative.

On the scale used, usefulness is the only dimension in which calculations approach a certain differentiation (associated significance 0.047). There, it can be observed that teachers who effected some sort of implementation (partial or complete) had a tendency toward a more positive assessment of the computer’s usefulness than those who did not implement anything.

Finally, we consider the self-efficacy perceived by teachers for the implementation of the proposal in their classroom activities. The values obtained and condensed in Table VII, as well as the corresponding calculations reveal that there are significant differences between the self-efficacy perceived by those who effected no implementation, and that perceived by the ones who managed to implement something (partially or completely) in favor of the latter. This situation is clarified with the analysis of the homogeneous subsets shown in Table VIII. In that table there is a well-defined separation between the two subsets and the close proximity of the values of perceived self-efficacy among those who carried out partial implementations and those who performed them in their entirety.

It is interesting to note that this separation, between those who implemented the proposal (wholly or in part) and those who did not, is the same as that suggested in the dimension usefulness of the attitude scale. This allows us to conjecture that the gap between total and partial implementations might have its origin in several factors that have escaped this study, or that have not been deep enough.

As indicated in the theoretical framework, experience with the computer, attitudes toward the environment, and teachers’ perception of self-efficacy are often assigned a predictive value for the transfer of technology into the classroom. However, to give a brief summary of the results, it appears that the only factor which showed a direct influence on the implementation of the proposal was teachers’ perception of self-efficacy.

On the other hand, the literature also registers complex interrelationships among the three variables mentioned. In the present case, positive correlations have been confirmed among all the dimensions of the attitudes among themselves, and between attitudes and self-efficacy, as shown in Table IX. There it can be observed that the major correlation was found in the dimension confidence, which tends to differ from the three remaining subscales. This is consistent with the fact that this dimension is the one closest to the perception of self-efficacy.

The relationship between attitudes and computer experiences is reflected in Tables X and XI. In these tables, and in the calculations that accompany them, there are clearly defined the positive attitudes that increase as the level of experience grows, leaving well-differentiated the three levels of this latter.

The relationship between experience in informatics and self-efficacy are shown in Tables XII and XIII, and in the results associated with such tabulations. These data show that self-efficacy increases with an increasing degree of experience, revealing significant differences between subjects with acceptable experience, and those of little or no experience. The latter are not statistically differentiated, unlike what happened between these two levels in regard to attitudes.

These results confirm the complex interrelationships among the variables considered in this section, and the directionality provided by the theory: positive correlations between attitude and self-efficacy, and the increase in self-efficacy and positive attitudes as computer experience increases. However, we have and found no predictive value on implementation of the proposal as regarding attitude and experience—unlike what happened with self-efficacy.

Finally, it is important to remember that teachers were under no obligation to implement the proposal. There was for them no support, no incentive nor condemnation, and ultimately it was subject to their own decision. In other words, it was devoid of extrinsic motivations; the implementation of the proposal depended heavily on the intrinsic motivations that the educator might have.

Conclusions

The results obtained in this study allow us to draw some conclusions—at least provisional ones—and consider possible courses of action or research to extend or deepen knowledge on the impact of certain factors in the complex cycle of transferring teacher-training to the classroom. In this regard, we point out would the following conclusions:

It is absolutely necessary that teacher-training plans for the incorporation of technology into schools, be understood as processes that would include, and, at least the stage immediately after training, the one in which should occur the transition of the results of the latter to the everyday classroom.

It is necessary that there be incorporated into the latter part of the process: a) monitoring and support to serve as scaffolding for the teacher, and b) weighted analysis, with its corresponding records, which would enable upcoming training campaigns to take advantage of the experience accumulated, rather than having each one run as if it were the first.

It has been verified that remove despite the low impact and very precarious conditions, the school still has some spaces with a certain autonomy, small, but important; these permit evolution and positive change in actors in the teaching-learning process.

The teacher’s age seems to have no effect on the degree of transfer to the classroom. This circumstance permits a certain vision of optimism concerning this variable, for working on the incorporation of information and communication technology into the scholastic environment.

Having a computer at home seems to have no impact on the amount of transference to the classroom—there was neither more nor less—although it evidences a certain directionality. For that reason, we understand that it would be worthwhile to investigate in detail, what those teachers who have a computer at home do with it. Probably such studies resume would shed light on the impact of this factor.

Although there have been found no differences of significant implementation between those teachers with different levels of computer experience, we need to remember that there were no subjects who fell into the categories extensive experience or expert experience. Therefore, the results obtained were confined to those who had, at best, acceptable experience. Moreover, this information confirms that, adjusting the training activities to educators whose experience with these does not exceed the range studied, it would cover virtually the entire educational spectrum.

Results have shown that the detention usefulness, of the attitude scale, and perceived self-efficacy, significantly discriminated between two subsets: a) teachers who did not perform any implementation, and b) those who did so in whole or in part. This situation would merit further investigation as to what factors might have an influence on the fact that in the same apparent subset, there might be different degrees of implementation of the proposals.

Although the only factors that have shown a direct effect on implementation have been self-efficacy, and to a lesser extent, the dimension usefulness of the scale of attitudes, the results confirm the complex, positive interrelationships between experience, attitude and self-efficacy. Therefore, it is sustainable to say that acting on any of these factors positively affects the others, and transitively, the degree of transfer to the classroom. If this reasoning is correct, then we can have a practical, concrete, well-founded dimension. Indeed, offering teachers courses, workshops and action-research projects suited to the thematic object of their work in the classroom should have consequences affecting the following factors, listed but not limited to: a) evaluation of the tool’s usefulness, with positive impact on the rest of the attitudes; b) increased confidence in using the medium, with an impact on their perception of self-efficacy; c) increased experience, with its positive impact on attitude and self-efficacy. While this brief agenda has solid theoretical foundations, its corroboration must be grounded on solid research accompanying the above proposals.

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Please cite the source as:

Martínez Vidal, R. D., Montero, Y. H., Pedrosa, M. E., & Martin, E. I. (2006). Teacher-training in Informatics and its Transfer to the Classroom: A Study in the Province of Buenos Aires. Revista Electrónica de Investigación Educativa, 8 (2). Retrieved month day, year, from: http://redie.uabc.mx/vol8no2/contents-vidal2.html