RSA #4 Effects of a long-duration, professional development academy on technology skills, computer self-efficacy, and technology integration beliefs

RSA #4 “Effects of a long-duration, professional development academy on technology skills, computer self-efficacy, and technology integration beliefs and practices”

In this article, Brinkerhoff (2006) details the progress of 25 teachers through a two-yeear professional development academy created to help remove barriers to teachers’ implementation of instructional technology in the classroom. The article details the selection of participants, subjects covered in the academy, and the outcomes of the academy based on data-collection from participant surveys.

Four key obstacles to the use of instructional technology are identified: resources, institutional support, experience, and attitudes towards technology (Brinkerhoff, 2006). The experiment speculates that a long-term academy providing follow-up, support, and resources would help improve teachers’ attitudes and knowledge, and thus increase their use of instructional technology in the classroom. Teachers met for three weeks in the summer and five days throughout the school year for two consecutive years (from 2003-2005). The teachers learned greater hardware proficiency and created projects using a range of software, online resources, and multimedia.

The resulting data generally showed an increase in teachers’ attitudes towards technology and an increasing belief that teaching technology was an important part of the regular classroom teacher’s responsibilities. However, the teachers did not report an increased amount of instructional technology employed in the classrooms during the same time (though they did feel their teaching had changed as a result of the academy) (Brinkerhoff, 2006). Of perhaps greatest importance to technology trainers were the data supplied after the first three-week training session. While over two years nearly all indicators of attitudes towards technology increased markedly, after the first round of training participants’ attitudes actually declined. This either shows a very poor training session or demonstrates that technology proficiency involves an intense and difficult early period preceding a rise to mastery. If the latter is the case, then we need to take that into account when conducting training (and perhaps share this with trainees).

Brinkerhoff, J. (2006). Effects of a long-duration, professional development academy on technology skills, computer self-efficacy, and technology integration beliefs and practices. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 39(1), 22-43. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.