The Roles of a Primary School Teacher in the Information Society

Abstract

Introducing information and communication technology (ICT) into education has had an impact on the teacher role perception. To learn about the perceptions of primary school teachers who regularly use computers in teaching, their role and the impact of ICT on the instructional process, a qualitative study was conducted in Estonia. Five teachers who extensively use computers in teaching were interviewed. Narrative logic was used in presenting the research findings. According to the results some of the teachers' roles coincided in traditional and computer‐aided lessons (distributor of knowledge, assessor), some roles were easier to perform with ICT (individualiser, motivator) and some roles had emerged due to ICT (expert of study materials, developer of materials). The essence of a primary school teacher's role has not changed, but the proportions of different roles and tasks have changed.

Keywords:

• Primary school
• Teacher's role
• Information and communication technology
• Computer‐aided instruction

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Triin Marandi for her comments on different aspects of the study. This paper was supported by Project 0101‐0267 ESF measure 1.1 The Improvement of the Quality of Doctoral Studies in the Field of Education.