Measuring and evaluating ICT use: developing an instrument for measuring student ICT use

Abstract

Teaching and learning in the 21st Century requires teachers and students to capitalise upon the relative advantage of integrating Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to enhance current curriculum, pedagogy and assessment approaches, as well as transform teaching and learning. While most educational systems agree that ICT has the potential to transform teaching and learning, attention has been given recently to the challenge of how to measure and evaluate the impact ICT is having on teaching and learning. This Chapter argues that the most important focus in measuring ICT use needs to be on student use of ICT, as policies and teacher professional development initiatives by themselves are insufficient to ensure that student learning is either enhanced or transformed through ICT use. Insights are provided into the development of a contemporary instrument, for use by Education Queensland, Australia, which aims to measure teacher perceptions of the quantity and quality of student use (as opposed to teacher use) of ICT in the curriculum. The instrument enables teachers and schools to identify their current and preferred levels of student ICT use, and from this, to generate discussion about the integration and transformational potential of ICT and to develop strategic plans to achieve their preferred level of student use. This Chapter also provides summaries of the implementation of the instrument in two large Queensland education systems, and argues that ICT research, such as this approach, which enables large scale, evidence-based research to measure student outcomes as a result of using ICT in the curriculum should be a matter of priority to effectively monitor and manage learning with ICT.