Education students' views on the integration of ICT into their undergraduate learning experiences

Abstract

It is well understood that university graduates, regardless of discipline, must have appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) competencies to function and be employable in the modern world. Universities have been encouraged to develop action plans for ICT literacy and to introduce means of auditing ICT literacy levels of students. In addition, education graduates have had additional responsibility to develop ICT competencies to support student learning. The extent to which this is actually being achieved is less well understood. This paper reports on the second phase of a research project to audit the ICT experiences of teacher education undergraduates. The first phase collected survey data that explored the students’ competence with ICT applications and their confidence with ICT integration in their teaching pedagogy, and is reported elsewhere. This paper reports on interviews with students to provide in-depth understanding of their ICT experiences as undergraduates. It supports survey findings that considerable difference exists between individual experiences within and between programs depending on course selection, study plans and personal inclination. It also raises serious questions about the capacity of many graduates to undertake ICT aspects of their profession without extensive and immediate further professional development. The paper concludes by exploring how some of this variance can be addressed to ensure that graduates are more ICT capable.