Evaluating the effectiveness of a preservice teacher technology training module incorporating SQD strategies

Hsu, Y., & Lin, C-H. (2020). Evaluating the effectiveness of a preservice teacher technology training module incorporating SQD strategies. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00205-2.

Abstract

Preparation to use information and communication technology (ICT) is an important component of preservice language teachers’ training, and various existing teacher training models propose a range of strategies for increasing their technology knowledge and technology adoption rates. However, the relative effectiveness of these strategies remains unclear. Based on Tondeur et al.’s (2012) Synthesis of Qualitative Data model, which delineates the six main teacher preparation strategies (i.e., role modeling, reflection, instructional design, collaboration, authentic experience, and continuous feedback), the present study designed a 4 week training module for preservice language teachers and examined how these training strategies affected 63 participants’ perceived technology knowledge and attitudes toward technology adoption. Among the six training strategies, reflection and instructional design had the highest positive impacts on these preservice teachers’ self-reported knowledge about and attitudes towards using ICT. As well as revealing the relative impacts of each training strategy, the results indicate that our designed training module has considerable potential for application to teacher training in other subjects.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has considerable potential for promoting second-language (L2) learning (e.g., Hsu, 2016; Lin, 2015). For this reason, ICT has emerged as a major component of language teacher education programs in the United States (Oxford & Jung, 2007), Mainland China (Lin et al., 2017) and Hong Kong (Hong Kong Education Bureau, 2014), as well as of international professional standards in this field (e.g., International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), 2012). However, while teachers around the world are becoming more familiar with ICT (European Commission, 2013; Fraillon, Ainley, Schulz, Friedman, & Gebhardt, 2014), language teachers’ knowledge of it, and of its application in L2 teaching, remain limited (Kim, 2011). As such, it has been noticed that more research on both how the training of preservice language teachers can increase their ICT adoption (Bustamante & Moeller, 2013), and on how language teacher training can effectively develop knowledge of ICT use (Kissau, 2015; Schmid and Hegelheimer, 2014, b), is urgently needed.

There are two main strands of research on language teacher education. The first uses technology adoption models to identify factors that may predict the uptake of ICT among educators (e.g., Lin et al., 2017), while the second focuses on the provision of ICT training within language teacher education programs, and testing its effects on the development of teacher knowledge (Chao, 2015; Cheng, 2014, 2017; Tai, 2015). While the number of studies of language teacher education has increased in recent decades, several research gaps remain. First, many studies that have proposed new training methods lack clear descriptions of their pedagogical designs (e.g., Cheng, 2014), making it difficult to replicate and evaluate the effectiveness of such methods. Second, the evaluation of ICT interventions in language teacher training has primarily focused on the growth of specific types of technology knowledge among preservice teachers (e.g., Cheng, 2017), rather than on their attitudes towards technology or their intentions to use it. And third, a lack of evaluation models for language teacher training has made it difficult to assess the impact of such ICT training.

Accordingly, this study designed a training module specifically for use in a teacher education program for preservice teachers of the Chinese language (described in detail below, in the section Rationale and Design of the ICT Training Module). A pretest and a posttest were used to determine, first, the effect of its implementation on such teachers’ perceived technology knowledge and attitudes toward technology adoption, and second, which of its six training strategies worked the best. The module’s design was rooted in Tondeur et al. (2012) Synthesis of Qualitative Data model (SQD-model): an evidence-based teacher training model that divides teacher education programs’ technology integration components into six main types (see below, under ICT Training in Language Teacher Education), and measures preservice teachers’ perceptions of each of them via a self report instrument called the SQD-scale. This scale has been found capable of providing informative evaluations of teacher education programs in general (e.g., Baran et al., 2017; Tondeur et al., 2018), but has not yet been widely studied in the context of L2 teaching – a gap that the current study helps to fill. In addition to the SQD-scale, for more comprehensive evaluation of the training module in particular, we utilized an instrument designed to measure the respondents’ attitudes toward practical use of their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK; see Mishra & Koehler, 2006) that was developed by Yeh et al. (2014) (i.e., the TPACK-practical scale; see Design and Rationale, below). To measure our training’s impact on technology acceptance, we used the scales in Teo’s (2011) study.

Language teacher education programs undoubtedly play major roles in equipping teachers with the knowledge and skills they need to use ICT in the classroom (b). The next section reviews three key themes of the relevant prior literature. They are: ICT training in language teacher education; such training’s effects on preservice language teachers’ knowledge; and its effects on such teachers’ technology adoption.

Link to publication in Springer Open