The moderating role of school facilitating conditions and attitudes towards ICT on teachers' ICT use and emphasis on developing students' digital skills

Abstract

Although information and communication technology (ICT) has impacted many areas of society, its use in school contexts is still limited. In this study, we focused on teachers’ attitudes towards ICT and the school facilitating conditions and examined their relationships to the teachers’ emphasis on developing students’ digital infor- mation and communication skills (TEDDICS) and ICT use. Furthermore, we tested whether school facilitating conditions moderated the relationships of attitudes and ICT use with TEDDICS. Overall, 552 teachers in primary and secondary education participated in our survey, and we analysed the resultant data via structural equation modelling. The results showed that positive attitudes towards ICT and ICT use were positively related. In addition, school facilitating conditions had a significant effect on both ICT use and TEDDICS. Notably, an interaction effect between school facilitating conditions and attitudes towards ICT existed—that is, better school facilitating conditions increased the effects of attitudes on ICT use and TEDDICS. These results show the importance of school facilitating conditions in teachers’ practices. A lack of school facilitating conditions may result in less ICT use in teaching, even for teachers who have positive attitudes towards ICT. Hence, promoting facilitating conditions along with positive attitudes in ICT use can be a viable strategy for implementing digi- talisation in schools.