With the development of information and communication technologies (ICT) and the increasing of online teaching materials, ICT is becoming an essential aspect of teachers' education and competencies. This paper aims to investigate how and why Albanian biology student-teachers use ICT during their master studies. The study method involved a survey (n = 56) of second-year biology student-teachers studying at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in two including general characteristics (age, gender, academic performance), access to digital equipment, digital competence, and the use of ICTs during studies. Our results show that students have low access to digital equipment. Students with high and average academic performance spent more time using ICT for study purposes than those with low academic performance (p<0.05). More than 90% of students emphasize that access to digital equipment and training is crucial to help them integrate ICT in their classes as teachers.
Technology was an important development of the 19th century, which brought substantial change in education and society. Technology and biology are considered a “fantastic duo” because both
brought developments
different in science, perceptions, education, innovation in learning methodology. new and
Technology offers many options to make a
lesson attractive and friendly for students. So the
teachers don't have to be limited to traditional
teaching, and they may create engaging lectures to
facilitate students' learning process [
Proceedings of RTA-CSIT 2023, April 26–27, 2023
2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative different programs.
Technical
problems
are
always present during
online teaching, and
teachers should be able to deal with them to
implement ICT properly in their classes [
Student teachers face personal and environmental challenges in developing their ICT skills.
Research
has
shown
that
students’
perception of the importance of ICT in education
and their confidence in using ICTs plays a vital
role in the motivation of students to use ICT [
Based on other studies, student-teachers have a
positive attitude toward the use of ICT in teaching
and learning. They are generally motivated to
implement it when they become teachers [
This paper aims to investigate how and why Albanian biology student-teachers use ICT during their master studies in the teacher education program.
This study took place at the Department of Biology, University of Tirana, Albania. The cohort being evaluated were second-year biology student-teachers (N=56) in two consecutive academic years, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. The student-teachers were invited via email to fill out an online questionnaire composed of closed questions (i.e., Likert scale and frequency of use) and one open question.
After consulting the literature on this topic, the questionnaire is formulated and organized into three sections. The first section included questions on the students’ general characteristics, such as age, gender, and academic performance. The second part had questions covering access to digital infrastructure (equipment, internet connection). The third section asked students about their digital competence and the use of ICTs during their master studies.
The data preprocessing and analysis are performed in SPSS 28.0. The data exploration is based on frequencies, descriptive statistics, and visualizations. The relationships between selected nominal variables in the questionnaire are tested using the Chi-square test for independence. We used the Chi-square goodness-of-fit test to test whether the cases in a single categorical variable were equal across categories. To compare the level of numerical variables within groups, we used the Kruskall-Wallis test.
Survey results on student-teacher access to digital equipment show that only half have personal computers. More than half of the students did not access interactive whiteboards and video conferencing during their studies. A learning management system (LMS) was not accessed for practice by 58.9%, and a projection system by 32.1% of respondents (Figure 1).
Student-teachers use technology for study purposes 6.55 (±4.44) hours/week on average, while the use of ICT for other purposes was 7.86 (±6.85) on average. Time spent using ICT for study purposes was related to academic `performance (Kruskal-Wallis test X2(2)=14.7; p<0.001). Based on pairwise comparison tests, students with high and average academic What kind of technical equipment is accessible for you as a student
teacher at the institution? Projection system 32.1 48.2 17.9 Digital camera
LMS Video-conferencing 55.4 58.9 53.6 39.3 5.4 33.9 7.1 33.9 10.7 Personal computer 21.4 28.6 50 Interactive whiteboard 58.9
17.9 19.6 0%
100% 50% % No access
Limited access
Full access performance spent more time using ICT for study purposes than students with low academic performance (p<0.05). No significant difference is observed between students with high and average academic performance (p>0.05), see Figure 2. Also, there was no statistically significant difference between different levels of academic performance for the time spent using ICT for other purposes (Kruskal-Wallis test X2(2)=5.33; p=0.07).
About 32.8% of students state they were involved in projects focusing on ICTs integration in teaching processes by their professors during their studies.
Half of the students use ICTs almost always for communication and networking, their own development and learning, work organization, keeping records, and preparing projects and lessons. More than 60% of the students use ICT to find digital learning resources (Figure 3).
Concerning the future integration of technology in their work as teachers, 66.10% of students state that to be confident and very confident to use it to support the teaching of specific concepts or skills, 69.6 % to support various student learning styles and to personalize learning, 64.3 % to enable teaching pupils with disabilities, and 74.8 % to foster pupils’ ability to use technology in their education.
More than 90% of students emphasize that access to digital equipment is important to very important to help them integrate ICT into their future work as teachers (Table 1). Similar results are observed for the importance of training and courses to help in ICT integration.
Students think that including ICT in the curriculum would impact ICT’s implementation in teaching processes. Time to practice is another important factor that would help student-teachers to improve their skills and incorporate ICT in their classes (Table 1).
To what extent have you used the ICT for the activities below during your master studies?
The recent decade's teaching and learning
methods have changed how teachers and students
practice their study sessions. Nowadays, the
education system does better combine classic
learning with e-learning. The perception and
inclusion of technology by student-teachers can
be impacted by various factors, which according
to Ertmer et al. [
Our study shows that the most frequent
drawback to technology integration is a need for
more digital equipment, which would constitute
an example of a first-order or school-related
barrier. Hew & Brush [
So-called blended learning, which has
advantages in the execution of a lesson that may
be carried out electronically or in person, is one of
the lesson models that can be used for
technological advancement [
The results of this short study indicate that student teachers’ engagement with ICT is worthy of further critical investigation.
We are grateful to the students participated in the study. who