Investigating U.S. and German pre-service teachers’ beliefs regarding digital technology

ABSTRACT

Based on different educational policies around the world, pre-service teachers are expected to use digital technology in their future teaching in school. However, to do this successfully, they need knowledge, skills and appropriate beliefs regarding utilising digital technology in learning scenarios. Thus, this study explores pre-service teachers’ beliefs regarding current digital technologies in their learning and future teaching. 232 pre-service teachers from Germany and the US participated in the comparative study and responded to the Digital Technologies Survey. The results show that overall pre-service teachers’ beliefs regarding digital technology in learning and teaching are on a moderate level. However, significant differences were seen between pre-service teachers from Germany and the US. For US pre-service teachers, digital technology seems more important and helpful for their current learning and future teaching than for German pre-service teachers. The same can be seen for self-assessed competence. The results and further implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Beliefs
• digitisation of education
• ICT enhanced teaching and learning
• higher education
• technology in education and training

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).