Preservice Teachers' Self-Efficacy and Practice-Based Experiences for Teaching with Online Digital Technologies

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of practice-based experiences involving online digital technologies during an initial methods-of-teaching mathematics and science course for influencing secondary preservice teachers' self-efficacy for teaching using online digital technologies. The participants were 32 secondary mathematics and science preservice teachers at a southeastern university in the United States. Pre- and post-survey data was collected to examine participant's self-efficacy for teaching with online digital technologies prior to and at the end of the methods course. Additionally, also collected at the end of the course was a survey of the participants' self-reported perceptions of practice-based experiences from the course on their learning to teach with online digital technologies. Their perceptions revealed aspects of these experiences as sources of self-efficacy information for teaching with these technologies. The findings reveal the initial methods-of-teaching course with a focus on practice-based experiences involving the use of online digital technologies significantly influenced the preservice teachers' self-efficacy for teaching with these technologies. Participants' perceptions of the practice-based experiences revealed mastery experiences (i.e., planning, and analyzing videos of their implemented lessons) as highly influential sources of efficacy information with verbal persuasion and vicarious experiences (i.e., instructor feedback, and participating in peer's digital technology integrated lessons) evidenced to a lesser extent. Interestingly, the participants highly rated learning from their peers' lessons, both stronger and weaker lessons. This differs from the literature which focuses on preservice or in-service teachers learning from observing lessons taught by individuals with more expertise.