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PhD Defence Frances Wijnen | Using new technology and stimulating students’ higher-order thinking: A study on primary school teachers’ attitudes

Using new technology and stimulating students’ higher-order thinking: A study on primary school teachers’ attitudes

The PhD defence of Frances Wijnen will take place (partly) online and can be followed by a live stream.
Live stream

Frances Wijnen is a PhD student in the research group ELAN Teacher Development. Supervisors are prof.dr. J.H. Walma van der Molen from the Faculty of Behavioural Management, Science and Technoloy (UT) and prof.dr. J.M. Voogt from the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (UvA).

In this dissertation, we present four studies in which we explore primary school teachers’ attitudes towards using (new) technology and stimulating students’ higher-order thinking. Higher-order thinking skills, such as creative thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving are regarded as crucial for students to develop. This means that teachers should offer assignments or questions that require students to engage in complex cognitive processes (e.g., analysing, evaluating, and creating) to find a solution, make a decision, prediction, judgement or product.

Research shows that new technology can be used as a tool to support students’ higher-order thinking. Technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and games have been found to support students’ learning and advance their higher-order thinking, compared to teaching practices that do not include such technologies.

To support pre- and in-service primary school teachers in their use of new technology to stimulate higher-order thinking, it is important that we gain an understanding of teachers’ attitudes towards using new technology and towards stimulating students’ higher-order thinking. However, there is little research on pre- and in-service primary school teachers’ attitudes towards stimulating higher-order thinking, and we know little about teachers’ attitudes towards using new technology. Therefore, we conducted four studies to fill this void in research. The main research question that we aimed to answer is: What are pre- and in-service primary school teachers’ attitudes towards using new technology in teaching and stimulating higher-order thinking in students?

Main findings of the studies

In our first study (Chapter 2), we conducted two literature reviews to (1) identify factors that make up teachers’ attitudes towards using technology and (2) to identify factors that make up teachers’ attitudes towards stimulating higher-order thinking.

This literature review resulted in the identification of nine attitudinal factors that make up primary school teachers’ attitudes towards using new technology in teaching. Furthermore, we identified four attitudinal factors that make up primary school teachers’ attitudes towards stimulating higher-order thinking in students.

In our second and third study we developed two questionnaires to measure (1) primary school teachers’ attitudes towards using new technology (TANT questionnaire) and (2) primary school teachers’ attitudes towards stimulating students’ higher-order thinking (SHOT questionnaire). For the development of both questionnaires, we translated the attitudinal factors that were identified in our literature reviews into scales consisting of multiple items. In addition to measures of attitude, we also included items to measure teachers self-reported use of new technology and teachers self-reported behaviour in stimulating students’ higher-order thinking. We distributed the TANT and SHOT questionnaire simultaneously among a large sample of pre- and in-service primary school teachers (n = 659). We then used multiple statistical analyses to evaluate the psychometric qualities of the TANT and SHOT questionnaire.

Results of these analyses showed that the TANT questionnaire can be used to measure six attitudinal factors validly and reliably. Furthermore, the items designed to measure teachers use of new technology proved valid and reliable. The results of the analyses of the SHOT questionnaire showed that this questionnaire can be used to measure four attitudinal factors in a valid and reliable way. Furthermore, the items designed to measure teachers’ behaviour aimed at stimulating students’ higher-order thinking can be used to measure two types of behaviour, namely: teacher activities which reflects different activities a teacher can undertake to stimulate higher-order thinking (e.g., design a lesson, teach a lesson, give assignments), and encouraging students, which reflects teaching behaviour aimed encouraging students to engage in different complex thinking processes (e.g., problem solving, creating new products).

In our last study (Chapter 5) we combined measures of teachers’ attitude towards using new technology and towards stimulating higher-order thinking to identify teacher profiles. For the identification of these profiles, we conducted a cluster-analysis on the data that was collected with the TANT and SHOT questionnaire (n = 659). The results of the cluster-analysis revealed three profiles based on teachers’ attitudes towards using new technology and stimulating students’ higher-order thinking.

The identification of these three profiles suggests that different teachers may need different forms of support to help them use new technology to stimulate students’ higher-order thinking.