Abstract:
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been in schools for a number of
years now, however little is known about what actually takes place when teachers bring
ICT into their professional pedagogical practice. This study contributes to this
understanding by examining the lived experiences of five teachers in their ICT mediated
practice over a period of five years.
To extend current understandings of change in teachers’ ICT mediated practice this study
uses a qualitative and longitudinal approach with grounded theory strategies. Assorted
analysis contributed to the longitudinal component. This involved the analysis of preexisting
qualitative data of the teachers combined with primary data collection and
analysis. Importantly, this study situates ICT mediated practice in order to examine the
complex interrelationship between context, engagement with context, and development in
individual teacher’s ICT mediated practices over time. Aspects of Professional Practice
theory and Socio-cultural theory were used to examine this relationship.
A significant finding of this study is that teachers’ ICT mediated practices are changing
and that the process of change is complex. Two factors were found to contribute to the
complexity. One was the central role of professional identity in teachers’ ICT mediated
practice. It was found that change begins in a teacher’s professional identity before it is
observed as changed classroom teaching practice. A second factor contributing to
complexity of change in ICT mediated practice was teachers’ consistent use of particular
aspects of their context (the syllabus, teachers’ own status in school hierarchy and, nonschool
uses of ICT) and individual factors (teachers’ core approaches to teaching and
learning and also their ability and motivation to develop themselves professionally) as
resources to inform the decisions they made in their ICT mediated practice. A theoretical
model of change in ICT mediated practice is presented. The model indicates the teachers’
use of contextual and individual resources was pronounced when they engaged with
changes in their context they considered to be critical to their professional identity
associated with their ICT mediated practice.This study also makes a methodological contribution by showing that a qualitative
longitudinal approach using grounded theory strategies and focusing on a small number of
participants facilitates identifying and examining the significance of context and individual
factors for change in TICT mediated practice. The use of context and individual factors
supported explaining change in TICT mediated practice is more complicated than simply a
change in actions a teacher performs in the classroom. This methodology also assisted in
providing evidence that while on the surface, a teacher may look like their TICT mediated
practice is not changing, there can be non-observable changes in their individual factors
and professional identity (which sustain and influence the observable changes) which
precede observable changed classroom practice.
