How Do Albanian Biology Student-Teachers Make Use of ICT During Their Master Studies? Eliana Ibrahimi1, Jona Saliaj1, Sara Berberi1, Enejda Damzi1 1 Department of Biology, University of Tirana, Bulv Zogu I, 25/1, Tirana, Albania Abstract 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 consecutive academic years, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. The survey explored several topics, 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. Keywords Student-teachers, ICT, Computer-assisted learning, Digital competence 1. Introduction Technology was an important development of To properly implement ICTs in their classes, the 19th century, which brought substantial teachers have to own some primary competencies; change in education and society. Technology and one of them is digital competence. biology are considered a “fantastic duo” because In Albania, technology reached the peak of its both brought different perceptions, new use during the COVID-19 pandemic. During developments in science, education, and isolation, lessons needed to take place online with innovation in learning methodology. different programs. Technical problems are Technology offers many options to make a always present during online teaching, and lesson attractive and friendly for students. So the teachers should be able to deal with them to teachers don't have to be limited to traditional implement ICT properly in their classes [3]. In teaching, and they may create engaging lectures to this case, it is essential to train teachers and future facilitate students' learning process [1]. It is also teachers to own digital competence, including essential that teachers use various tools during the information, collaboration, communication with learning process. In this way, they stimulate active others, digital space, privacy security, and learning, and students share their thoughts with problem solution. others [2]. Student teachers face personal and environmental challenges in developing their ICT Proceedings of RTA-CSIT 2023, April 26–27, 2023 skills. Research has shown that students’ Tirana, Albania. perception of the importance of ICT in education EMAIL: eliana.ibrahimi@fshn.edu.al (A. 1) jona.saliaj@fshnstudent.info (A. 2) and their confidence in using ICTs plays a vital sara.berberi@fshnstudent.info (A. 3) role in the motivation of students to use ICT [4]. enejda.qama@fshnstudent.info (A. 4) Based on other studies, student-teachers have a ORCID: 0000-0003-0956-215X (A. 1); 0000-0002-3464-9022 (A. 2); 0000-0001-5230-5058 (A. 3); 0000-0002-4969-8521 (A. 4) positive attitude toward the use of ICT in teaching ©️ 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). and learning. They are generally motivated to CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org) implement it when they become teachers [5, 6, 7]. This paper aims to investigate how and why Albanian biology student-teachers use ICT during What kind of technical equipment is their master studies in the teacher education program. accessible for you as a student teacher at the institution? 2. Methods Projection system 32.1 48.2 17.9 This study took place at the Department of Biology, University of Tirana, Albania. The Digital camera 55.4 39.3 5.4 cohort being evaluated were second-year biology LMS 58.9 33.9 7.1 student-teachers (N=56) in two consecutive academic years, 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. The Video-conferencing 53.6 33.9 10.7 student-teachers were invited via email to fill out Personal computer 21.4 28.6 50 an online questionnaire composed of closed questions (i.e., Likert scale and frequency of use) Interactive whiteboard 58.9 17.9 19.6 and one open question. After consulting the literature on this topic, the 0% 50% 100% questionnaire is formulated and organized into % three sections. The first section included questions No access Limited access Full access on the students’ general characteristics, such as age, gender, and academic performance. The second part had questions covering access to Figure 1: Access of biology student-teachers to digital infrastructure (equipment, internet technical equipment at the university. connection). The third section asked students about their digital competence and the use of ICTs performance spent more time using ICT for study during their master studies. purposes than students with low academic The data preprocessing and analysis are performance (p<0.05). No significant difference performed in SPSS 28.0. The data exploration is is observed between students with high and based on frequencies, descriptive statistics, and average academic performance (p>0.05), see visualizations. The relationships between selected Figure 2. Also, there was no statistically nominal variables in the questionnaire are tested significant difference between different levels of using the Chi-square test for independence. We academic performance for the time spent using used the Chi-square goodness-of-fit test to test ICT for other purposes (Kruskal-Wallis test whether the cases in a single categorical variable X2(2)=5.33; p=0.07). were equal across categories. To compare the About 32.8% of students state they were involved level of numerical variables within groups, we in projects focusing on ICTs integration in used the Kruskall-Wallis test. teaching processes by their professors during their studies. 3. Results Half of the students use ICTs almost always for Survey results on student-teacher access to communication and networking, their own digital equipment show that only half have development and learning, work organization, personal computers. More than half of the keeping records, and preparing projects and students did not access interactive whiteboards lessons. More than 60% of the students use ICT to and video conferencing during their studies. A find digital learning resources (Figure 3). learning management system (LMS) was not Concerning the future integration of technology accessed for practice by 58.9%, and a projection in their work as teachers, 66.10% of students state system by 32.1% of respondents (Figure 1). that to be confident and very confident to use it to Student-teachers use technology for study support the teaching of specific concepts or skills, purposes 6.55 (±4.44) hours/week on average, 69.6 % to support various student learning styles while the use of ICT for other purposes was 7.86 and to personalize learning, 64.3 % to enable (±6.85) on average. Time spent using ICT for teaching pupils with disabilities, and 74.8 % to study purposes was related to academic foster pupils’ ability to use technology in their `performance (Kruskal-Wallis test X2(2)=14.7; education. p<0.001). Based on pairwise comparison tests, students with high and average academic To what extent have you used the ICT for the activities below during your master studies? 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 Figure 2: Mean (95% CI) of time (hours per 0 week) student-teachers spend using ICT for studies and other purposes based on academic performance. 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 Never Rarely curriculum would impact ICT’s implementation Less than half the time About half the time in teaching processes. Time to practice is another important factor that would help student-teachers More than half the time Almost always to improve their skills and incorporate ICT in their classes (Table 1). Figure 3: Use of technology for specific study Table 1 activities by biology student-teachers. How significant are the following to help you as a future teacher in integrating ICT into teaching? 4. Discussion Not Somewhat Important Very The recent decade's teaching and learning important important (%) important methods have changed how teachers and students (%) (%) (%) practice their study sessions. Nowadays, the Access to education system does better combine classic digital learning with e-learning. The perception and 7.2 1.8 44.6 46.4 inclusion of technology by student-teachers can equipment be impacted by various factors, which according to Ertmer et al. [8], were categorized into first and Training 3.6 12.5 42.9 41.1 second-order barriers. Although this categorization is outdated, the ideas still apply ICT in the today, with instances of these obstacles being 5.4 8.9 48.2 37.5 curriculum referred to as school or teacher-related barriers, respectively, as described in [9]. Time to Our study shows that the most frequent 1.8 16.1 50 32.1 practice drawback to technology integration is a need for more digital equipment, which would constitute an example of a first-order or school-related purposes state that to be confident enough to use barrier. Hew & Brush [10] report that the use of technology to teach specific concepts and skills or ICT in teaching practices depends on the integrate different learning styles. In the case of availability and access to digital equipment, time ICT, younger student teachers will grow up with constraints, and adequate technical support. Lack extended experience in using new technologies in of access to personal computers could be a their daily lives [14]. problem regarding the student teacher’s ICT The results of this short study indicate that literacy and the subsequent integration into student teachers’ engagement with ICT is worthy teaching [11]. However, this effect should be of further critical investigation. accounted for by guaranteeing appropriate infrastructure such as interactive whiteboards, projection systems, and video-conferencing, 5. Acknowledgments among others, responsibility for which falls We are grateful to the students who mainly on the institution. Low access rates to participated in the study. technical equipment could be the direct consequence of the scarcity of said equipment or the poor organization of resources. 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