Graduate-entry pre-service teachers : The relationship between their experience using technology in their previous occupations and their technological pedagogical beliefs

An important aspect of teachers’ work is integrating technology to support student learning. Teachers’ beliefs, knowledge, and skills related to technology develop well before their pre-service teacher education begins. For those graduate-entry pre-service teachers, prior experiences may play a valuable role in shaping their self-efficacy for, and use of technology in their pedagogical practice. This paper presents findings from the first phase of a mixed method study of students enrolled in a one-year graduate teaching course (N = 146). Graduate-entry pre-service teachers at an Australian university were invited at the commencement of their course to complete a survey about their self-efficacy beliefs using technology in their previous occupations, and their self-efficacy beliefs for integrating technology into classroom teaching. The connections between previous occupational experiences using technology and technology self-efficacy beliefs were examined. Analysis revealed a significant relationship between the four variables: application of technology, types of technological tools used, general technology self-efficacy and technology pedagogy self-efficacy. The greater the experience in applying a wide variety of technological tools in their previous workplace, the higher the participant’s self-efficacy beliefs for both general technology and technology pedagogy. The results are particularly interesting of those participants (n = 58), who used specialised professional technology applications while working in these roles. For this subsample, there was a significantly higher positive linear relationship between the types of technological tools used in previous occupations, and their self-efficacy beliefs regarding both general technology and technology pedagogy. The implications of this study are to provide a greater understanding of the technological skills, expertise and beliefs graduate-entry teachers bring with them from previous roles. It aims to highlight how graduate-entry teachers’ experience of using specialised technology pertinent to their previous professions, could facilitate the achievement of mandated technology pedagogy reforms.