Laptops for Teachers: An evaluation of the TELA scheme in Auckland schools

3. Beliefs, use and readiness in the beginning

Baseline data were gathered through an initial survey early in 2005. This initial survey provided data regarding teachers’ expectations of the impact of their laptops, their use of computers prior to receiving their laptops, and their perceived skill and confidence level (readiness) in using computers prior to receiving them. A total of 188 baseline surveys were returned from across 13 schools.

Teacher beliefs

The baseline survey asked teachers about their beliefs with regard to their laptops. They were, firstly, asked to what extent a given list of factors had influenced their decision to get a laptop. They responded using a scale of 1 = not at all through to 6 = extremely. This question provided some insight into what these participants perceived to be the value of having a laptop. The factors given were:

• the encouraging attitude of senior management
• other staff members were getting one
• I did not have a computer and I wanted one
• I believe a laptop is a valuable tool for teachers
• the computer I already had needed updating
• I believe all teachers need to have access to a computer for their work
• we all had to get one
• it was a good deal
• no particular reason.

The responses to this question are shown graphically in Figure 3.1.

The participants mainly reported two inter-related reasons for getting a laptop. These were that they believed it was a valuable tool for teachers and that they believed teachers needed access to a computer for their work. Both these reasons had average levels of influence greater than five (very influential) while the level of influence for all other factors was between two and four.

The least influential reasons were to do with the need for a computer or to update a current computer. This is not surprising as, in the baseline survey, 78% of participants reported they already had access to a computer at home. The need for a computer per se cannot, therefore, have been a primary driving force in joining the laptop scheme. Also, the extent to which teachers already have access can be seen as a mediating factor on the potential impact of the laptops. One could assume that teachers with access to computers at home would already have a reasonable level of familiarity and skill, although this is not a given as access does not necessarily equate to use.

Participants were also asked how much impact they thought their laptop would have in six different areas of their professional lives. Again a six-point response scale was used with 1 = none at all through to 6 = extensive. The areas were:

• improving academic outcomes for your students
• improving your ICT skills
• your professional development and learning
• administrative work – reports, recording marks etc
• professional work – the development of resources etc
• classroom teaching practices – what they do in the classroom with students.

As Figure 3.2 shows, all participants reported reasonably high expectations regarding the impact having a laptop would have on their professional lives, with the expected levels of impact either approaching four (large) or between four and five (very large) for all areas listed.

Figure 3.2: Average level of expected impact in different areas of a participant’s professional life

The areas with the greatest reported impact were administrative work and improving ICT skills. This is important as both these areas are specifically mentioned in the Ministry goals for the TELA initiative. The implication is that both the teachers and the Ministry have similar expectations for the outcomes of the initiative.

The areas with the least expected impact were classroom teaching practices and improving academic outcomes for students. Presumably, the laptops would have been intended to have an indirect, if not direct impact, on these areas, but neither was mentioned specifically in the Ministry goals, which focus on teacher use in ways that indirectly impact on actual student learning experiences, such as preparation and administration⁶. However, as other aspects of this evaluation subsequently show, the laptops do appear to have impacted on classroom practices to a greater extent than, perhaps, either the Ministry or the participants anticipated.

This evaluation did not attempt to consider the impact of the laptops on academic outcomes and indeed this would be problematic without a carefully constructed, randomised experimental study. In addition, it is possible that the use of digital technologies has an impact on a much broader range of desirable outcomes than can be readily measured academically.

Levels of computer use

The baseline survey also asked teachers about their computer use within specified areas of their professional lives⁷ prior to the introduction of the laptops. Seven time periods, based on hours of use per week, were used on the response categories (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20, 21-25, 26+).

The types of use identified in the survey were:

• pedagogical use – in the classroom with students as part of their learning
• preparation and presentation of classroom materials – creating worksheets, presenting material, accessing lesson materials on the web etc
• administrative purposes – reporting, attendance, marks, communicating with colleagues etc
• professional development and learning – membership of professional communities, online courses, accessing research etc
• personal use – anything not work-related.

Table 3.1 displays the percentage of participants for each type of use reporting the various time periods⁷.

What this table shows is that for all types of use the most frequently reported time period was 1-5 hours, although there were outliers (responses that is markedly different from most others) suggesting high levels of use by some individuals within each school. It should be noted that the overall level of use could be as high as 25 hours if a participant reporting in the category between 1 and 5 hours for each usage type was actually using it for near to the maximum level, that is five hours.

The most commonly reported type of use was the preparation and presentation of classroom materials. Only 5% of participants did not report using computers in this way and 28% reported doing so for between 6 and 10 hours a week. This was one of the Ministry goals and expectations for the laptops, although these findings suggest teachers were already using computers in this way and that, while laptops might have made it easier for them to do so, they were unlikely to substantially increase the levels of use in this area.

The least frequently reported type of use was professional development and learning, with 32% of participants reporting never having used computers in this way, and a further 48% reporting only 1-5 hours use. This was certainly one area in which there was substantial room for improvement and, again, this was a focus area for the Ministry. It was an area considered likely to expand with access to laptops.

Teacher readiness to use laptops

A third section of the baseline survey asked participants about their readiness to use computers in terms of the range and level of their skills and confidence in using computers prior to getting their laptop. Each of these areas is considered in this section.

Raising teacher skill levels could be seen as the key purpose of the TELA initiative. The objective quoted earlier talks of raising competence and confidence. Increasing teacher skill was a specific goal of the initiative and is a key feature of both competence and confidence. Added to this it could be claimed that without increased skills and, probably more importantly, increased confidence, teachers are unlikely to use their laptops, or other digital technologies, extensively. Indeed, in the focus group interviews one participant suggested that “People don’t feel confident about it when they’re only using it for their planning and think that’s you know, all that, all they need to do”.

In this report, capability (competence) is considered in terms of both the range of skills and the level of skills. In the baseline survey, teachers were asked to report on their ICT capability prior to getting their laptops. They were asked to indicate, firstly, how many different things they could do, what their range of skills was (largely in relation to software or peripherals they could utilise). A six-point response scale was used where 1 was very limited and 6 extensive. Across all participants the average for range of skills was 3.5 (SD=1.2). Secondly, they were asked about their level of skill and how good they were at what they could do. Responses were also on a six-point response scale where 1 was very poor and 6 excellent. The average level of skill was 3.8 (SD=0.9). In all schools there were outliers who reported very high levels of skill and/or a very wide range of skill. Figures 3.3 and 3.4 display the percentage of participants, in each category, for both range and level of skill.

Figure 3.3: Percentage of participants at each reported range of skills

What this shows is that a clear majority of participants saw their range of skills, before they got their laptops, as either fair or better. Fair was the most frequently reported category (36%) followed by wide (27%). Only a few participants (6%) reported an extensive range of skills while the same percentage reported a very limited range.

Figure 3.4: Percentage of participants at each reported level of skill

The most commonly reported level of skill was good (38%). This suggests that the reported level of skill is higher than the reported range of skills. It would appear, therefore, that these teachers’ skills are across a limited number of areas. Findings from the focus groups suggest this is most likely to be related to need, in that many teachers, apparently, learn only what they have to or what they see a benefit in being able to do. For example, one participant explained that she only learned how to do PowerPoint because she had to do a presentation, while for another, her motivation to learn was related to a desire “to try and keep up with the students in my class” (she had an e-class).

Only two participants reported very poor skills and only 4% poor skills (n=8). The implication is that most of the participant teachers felt they were already reasonably skilled in using computers when they got their laptops. Given the large number who already had access to computers at home, this should not be surprising. It does suggest, though, that there may be limited room for teacher skill to improve as one could question the extent to which teachers need to be highly skilled users of ICT. This is an idea reinforced by the participant who commented that “You can only fit so much computer teaching into – you know – your timetable so, maybe we know as much as we need to know”.

Participants were also asked, on a six-point scale (not at all to extremely), how confident they felt about using laptops in a variety of ways. Confidence has been shown to be an important determinant of teacher use of computers and to be related to more than skill alone (Ward & Parr, 2010). The areas of use were to:

• present materials to students in the classroom
• prepare instructional material using basic applications, such as Word
• use multimedia tools to prepare instructional material
• access a wide range of classroom material on the Internet
• participate in professional learning online
• communicate with other people using email
• facilitate student use in the classroom.

Table 3.2 shows the percentage of participants reporting the various levels of confidence, while Figure 3.5 compares the average reported level of confidence across the different types of use. Only three types of use have a reported mean confidence level approaching 5 (very confident) while none is above 5. However, in all instances the reported levels of confidence were above 3 (moderately).

Figure 3.5: Average reported confidence across categories of use access a wide range of classroom material on the Internet

The types of use for which participants reported the highest levels of confidence were using email (4.8), using the Internet (4.5) and preparing instructional material using basic applications (4.9). These are areas within which the earlier data indicated there were likely to be higher levels of use, suggesting a relationship between use and confidence, although the direction of causality is difficult to determine. Indeed, this was alluded to in the group interviews where one group of teachers spoke of how need led to use, which led to increased confidence, which led to more use.

The areas where teachers reported being the least confident were using multimedia tools to prepare instructional material (3.6) and participating in professional learning online (3.5). These were two areas where the Ministry had explicitly stated it wanted to enable teacher use.

Footnotes