Teachers' Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Skills and Practices of Using ICT.

KAI HAKKARAINEN [1]

HANNI MUUKONEN [2]

LASSE LIPPONEN [1]

LIISA ILOMAKI [1]

MARJAANA RAHIKAINEN [3]

The purpose of the study was to analyze relations between teachers' skills in using the new information and communication technology (ICT), their pedagogical thinking, and their self-reported practices. About 600 Finnish elementary and high school teachers representing 64.1% of the intended teacher population responded to a self-report questionnaire. The study indicated that only a small percentage of teachers had adequate technical ICT skills although a majority had access to computers either at home or at school. The study furnished evidence that, in the classroom, teachers who actively used ICT emphasized (more than other teachers) the importance of using information technology for supporting a research-like process of inquiry, collaborative learning, learners' active engagement in the knowledge-formation process, and the learnability of intelligence. Further, the results indicated that the discrepancy between teachers' pedagogical principles that commonly emphasized active construction of knowledge, and t heir self-reported pedagogical practices, was lower for teachers who intensively use ICT as compared with other teachers.

The educational system in developed countries is facing major challenges as a consequence of the revolution of communication and information technology. Relationships in modem societies are transformed by emerging new means of creating, processing, accessing, and transferring information. Information and communication technologies are dramatically altering many aspects of economic and social life: production systems, working methods, and relations, the organization of companies, and the way people communicate with each other are under-going changes throughout the world. Productive functioning in emerging collaborative learning organizations requires, in adults, new self-regulative skills of controlling and directing one's own thinking processes and knowledge activities (Keating, 1995; 1996).

The revolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) is a major challenge for teachers' professional development. They have to learn technical skills adequate to use ICT productively, as well as to instruct and guide the students to use ICT purposefully and generatively. Teachers not only have to become familiar with ICT but also to acquire the pedagogical expertise needed for fruitfully working with new technology-based learning environments. New pedagogical practices have to be explored and developed to facilitate higher-level knowledge acquisition skills the learners need to constructively adapt to the knowledge society. Currently, teachers' lack of technical expertise in ICT appears to significantly constrain possibilities of developing new and innovative computer-supported pedagogical practices.

Further, to fully use new pedagogical possibilities offered by ICT, profound changes in teachers' conceptions of learning and knowledge are required. Technical expertise alone is not sufficient for exploiting new pedagogical possibilities provided by ICT; insofar as ICT is used in the educational system as a purely technical innovation, it is not likely that significant pedagogical progress will be achieved. Several cognitive researchers (e.g., Salomon, 1997; Salomon & Perkins, 1996; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994) have pointed out that many applications of educational technology support only lower-level processing of knowledge. Yet new pedagogical models of using educational technology, and particularly computer-supported collaborative learning environments, promise to provide new opportunities for solving pedagogical problems in the schools.

Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994; in press), and others, have proposed that to meet the future challenges, schools be transformed into communities where productive working for advancing communal knowledge is a primary goal of both students and teachers. Knowledge building refers to a process of advancing understanding by setting up, articulating, and answering research questions, searching and exploring information, and generating and evaluating explanations. In the present study, the sustained processes of advancing and building of knowledge characteristic of scientific inquiry and knowledge-creating organizations are called "progressive inquiry." Several, concurrent, cognitive research projects share a common goal of fostering such research-like processes of inquiry in education (Brown & Campione, 1996; Lamon, Secules, Petrosino, Bransford, & Goldman, 1996; Perkins, Crismond, Simmons, & Unger, 1995; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1994). Progressive inquiry entails that knowledge is not simply assimilated but constr ucted through solving problems of understanding. The emerging new models of computer-supported collaborative learning promise, with appropriate institutional support, to elicit development of higher-level skills of knowledge processing needed in knowledge society (Hakkarainen & Sintonen, in press; Lehtinen, Hakkarainen, Lipponen, Rahikainen, & Muukkonen, 1998).

Further, on the basis of research on socially distributed cognitive processes (e.g., Brown, Ash, Rutherford, Nakagawa, Gordon, & Campione, 1993; Norman 1993; Perkins 1993; Pea 1993) cognitive researchers are strongly emphasizing the significance of collaborative learning in cognitive development. Computer-supported collaborative learning, properly implemented, promises to foster human cognitive development. In parallel with these findings, several cognitive researcher argue that intelligence can be enhanced and helped to grow through sustained, focused cognitive efforts (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996; Perkins, 1995; Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1993; Schank & Birnbaum, 1994). Intelligent technology may function as an extension of the human cognitive system and facilitate development of intelligence. In order to restructure educational practices according to cognitive theory and answer the challenges of the knowledge society, teachers need to be engaged in an extensive professional development process. To meet the chall enges of knowledge society, teachers require adequate technical infrastructure and resources, adequate skills in using information technology, theoretical understanding of the role of intelligent technology in human cognition, and innovative pedagogical models of using ICT for pedagogical purposes. Further, it is unlikely that an individual teacher can make much progress in his or her pedagogical practice without support of the whole pedagogical community of the school (Lipponen & Hakkarainen, 1997; Hakkarainen, Lipponen, & Jarvela, in press).

The City of Helsinki has been carrying out an educational technology project called the Schools of Helsinki 2001 project. During the project each school from elementary to high-school level was equipped with a network infrastructure and new computers. Over 70.000 students were provided with their own Internet address. As a part of the project, the investigators carried out a professional development project for 3,000 teachers that focused both on developing technical ICT skills and on acquiring expertise needed for pedagogically well-grounded practices using ICT. Students were assessed. The present study was a part of this overall ICT project and focused on examining teachers' technical ICT skills, pedagogical goals and practices of using the ICT, as well as their pedagogical thinking. A parallel investigation was conducted for assessing students' skills and practices of using ICT and reported elsewhere (Hakkarainen, Ilomaki, Lipponen, Muukkonen, Rahikainen, Tuominen, Lakkala, & Lehtinen, 2000). Finland is on e of the most advanced countries in terms of computer usage, Internet access, as well as information technology. The present results, therefore, appear to be of international interest because they raise issues that each developed country is facing today or will in the near future. The purpose of the study is (a) to examine teachers' ICT skills, (b) to examine how ICT is used in current educational practices, (c) to assess teachers' pedagogical thinking, as well as (d) to identify relations between teachers' reported use of ICT and their pedagogical thinking.

RESEARCH METHODS

Subjects

The subjects of this study were 608 teachers representing 41 lower- and upper-elementary and high schools from Helsinki, Finland. The study was based upon the following test instrument: a self-report questionnaire that was designed to measure teachers' expertise in information technology and their pedagogical beliefs, that is, their conceptions of learning, knowledge, and intelligence as well as their own conceptions of their instructional practice. In addition, the investigators in developing their method had carried out an interview of a small group (24) of teachers representing all levels of education previously mentioned.

The questionnaire was returned by 64.1% of the intended teacher population. About 75% (n=443) of teachers who answered the questionnaire were females and 25% (n=148) were males, corresponding very closely to the relative proportions of female and male teachers in Finnish schools. Unfortunately, 19 teachers answered anonymously and their gender could not be determined. On average, the teachers were 44 years old, and the age range was between 20 and 62 years. About 28% of the teachers represented lower elementary school; 29%, upper elementary school; 13%, high school; and 20%, combined lower-and upper-elementary level schools. In addition, 9% of the teachers represented evening schools.

Assessment Instrument

The self-report questionnaire consisted of Likert-type questions. The teachers were asked to rate, on a five-point scale, 31 statements concerning their skills and usage of information technology (ICT) and 44 statements concerning their general pedagogical conceptions. The issue of social desirability was addressed. Finnish teachers are quite familiar with the constructivist concept of learning, so answers that emphasize a learner's active engagement with exploratory activities are very common. It could not be assumed that corresponding pedagogical practices were, necessarily, so widespread. The problem was controlled by asking the teachers not only their opinions about general pedagogical principles but also how they actually applied these principles in their instructional practice. For evaluating the "principle" statements, investigators used a five-step scale from "I fully agree" to "I fully disagree." Further, the teachers were asked to assess how often these kinds of principles are realized in their ped agogical practices by using a five-step scale from (1) I almost always do this" to (5) I never do this."

The purpose of the study was to assess relationships between teachers' skills in using ICT and their pedagogical beliefs. The contents of statements presented in the questionnaire were derived from cognitive research on educational practice and cognitive theory. In the development of the assessment instruments, several teachers answered open-ended questions about practices of using ICT in their classroom and their pedagogical conceptions: Qualitative analysis of this data formed the basis of the final version of the self-report questionnaire. In the preparation of the assessment instrument, 30-40 teachers were asked to fill out the self-report questionnaire, and an item analysis was carried out. Items that appeared to be socially desirable or that did not adequately discriminate between the teachers were eliminated. On the basis of these measures, the investigators designed scales for assessing teachers' expertise in ICT and their pedagogical thinking. Scales for assessing teachers' conceptions of learning a nd knowledge were partially based on assessment instruments that were originally created by Perry (1968) and Ryan (1984), and further developed by Lonka, Joram, and Bryson (1995, see also Lonka & Lindblom-Ylanne; 1996). In addition, new items were developed concerning teachers' technical skills in using ICT, their pedagogical goals and practices in using ICT, as well as their beliefs about the learnability of intelligence, the progressive inquiry approach to learning and knowledge. Table 1 presents a summary of scales relevant to the background of the self-report questionnaire.

The scale of technical ICT skills consisted of items that were designed to measure the subjects' general assessment of their mastery of the ICT as well as their competence in different domains of ICT such as textprocessing, spreadsheet, desktop publishing, authoring tools, and World Wide Web (WWW or Web). Another scale consisted of items that focused on how intensively teachers use applications of ICT in planning of their teaching and in their actual instructional practice. This scale was labeled "intensity of using ICT." In the self-report questionnaire, pedagogical goals and practices of the teachers were also assessed, regarding use of ICT at school; that is, whether ICT is used for carrying out routine tasks or solving routine problems or whether ICT usage is designed to facilitate the students' self-regulated research-like process of inquiry and solving of authentic, complex problems. This scale was labeled the "ICT-for-progressive-inquiry principle." The scale contained items of the following kind: "In formation technology can be used as a tool for independent search for information" or "The best part of information technology is that students are processing complex and authentic problems independently." For each statement, the teachers were asked to assess how often the principle in question is actually implemented in their pedagogical practice. This scale was labeled "ICT-for-progressive-inquiry practice."

The teachers were further asked to assess a set of items connected with technology support for collaborative learning. The ICT-support-for-collaborative-learning scale asked the teachers to assess whether ICT isolates students from each other or has a potential for facilitating peer collaboration. It contained items such as "collaborative working with computers improves students' school achievements." A part of the self-report questionnaire was a scale for assessing teachers' conceptions of the learnability of intelligence, as applied to their students. The scale of learnability of intelligence consisted of items according to which "Sustained cognitive effort does not change a student's intelligence or mental capacity" or "Students' cognitive competence is not enough for planning larger curricular units."

Teachers' conceptions of inquiry were measured by using a scale in which they were asked to evaluate a set of items connected with the pedagogy of progressive inquiry, such as "I think that reflecting on students' own conceptions is as important an aspect of learning as adopting conceptions presented in textbooks" or "Students should be encouraged to ask questions even before introducing new material." This scale was named the "progressive-inquiry principle." The teachers were, further, asked to assess how they are following the same principle in their pedagogical practice. This scale was called "progressive-inquiry practice."

To assess teachers' conceptions of knowledge, they were asked to evaluate a set of items concerning the role of an individual student in the knowledge formation process; is it only assimilation of already existing knowledge or does it presuppose active interpretation and knowledge construction? The scale of dynamic conception of knowledge contained, among others, the following items: "Teaching time should not be used to talk about problems that cannot be conclusively answered" or "A teacher's most important task is to make sure that the students have the right conception of the problems being studied." As previously mentioned, some of the items were based on assessment instruments developed by Lonka, Joram, and Bryson (1995). Yet new items were also developed that focused on epistemological conceptions rather than the nature of learning process. Thus the content of the scale differed from that of Lonka and Lindblom-Ylanne (1996).

The self-report questionnaire also contained items that referred to the nature of teachers' pedagogical community in a school. The strength-of-pedagogical-community scale consisted of the following kinds of items: "My school does not have a well-defined and jointly accepted vision of development of the school" or "The teacher community of my school does not discuss together the tasks or goals of the school."

Correlations were computed and principal component analyses performed in order to ex-amine relations between teachers' ICT skills and usage of information technology and their conceptions of learning, intelligence, and knowledge (as well as strength of pedagogical community). Orthogonal rotation was deemed adequate because correlations between factors were low. A principal component four-factor Varimax solution was chosen. Interactions between the scales and age and gender of the teachers were analyzed by combining individual scales according to their VARIMAX rotation principal component structure (using principal component scores for each subject), and then comparing different subject groups on the basis of these principal component scores. A two-way ANOVA was applied to compare different groups (age; gender). The subjects were divided into three age groups; the age of young teachers n = 156) varied between 20 and 35 (M = 31) years; middle-aged teachers (n = 244) between 36 and 50 (M = 43) years, and older teachers (n = 194) between 51 and 63 (M = 55) years.

To examine relationships between teachers' expertise in ICT and their pedagogical thinking, they were divided into three relatively homogeneous groups according to intensity of using ICT, by using cluster analysis. ICT usage rather than expertise in ICT was selected as a grouping variable because it was assumed that access to ICT, far more than skills of using ICT determined the extent of practices involving ICT at school. There were 242 teachers who did not use ICT or used it only a little; 217 moderately and 118 intensively.

Prior to analysis, the data were examined for missing values. The analysis indicated that there were about 11% missing values in variables representing ICT for progressive inquiry practice, and 8% for the ICT-for-progressive-inquiry principle. Because the percentage of missing values was rather low and those values appeared to be randomly distributed through the data, the missing values were ignored.

The Reliabilities of Individual Scales

Several scales for assessing teachers' skills and practices in using ICT were created; means and Cronbach alphas for the respective scales are presented in Table 2, which also shows, for each scale, the number of items; minimum and maximum values.

The internal consistency of different scales varied from .58 to .92. The reliability analysis revealed that the scales were satisfactory and provided a good basis for further analyses. For analyzing relationships between the measures, investigators calculated a sum variable for each scale (a sum of individual items in a scale). Examination of the reliabilities of the scales indicated that the sum variables assessed the dimensions in question in a rather consistent way. To find the most important dimensions to account for the phenomena of interest, a principal component analysis was carried out, and the distributions of the individual variables was examined.

RESULTS

Relationships Between the Scales

Principal factors extraction with Varimax rotation was performed through SPSSWIN on 12 sum scores representing teachers' skills and practices of using ICT skills and their pedagogical thinking as measured by the self-report questionnaire. A Scree plot was used to estimate the number of factors. The analysis yielded a four-factor Varimax solution, which explains 62.4% of variance of the variables. Distinguishability and simplicity of factors appeared to be satisfactory, and the four-factor solution was adopted as interpretable. In Table 3 are presented results of a principal-component analysis based on sum scores derived from the above-described scales.

The first factor (Fl) has high loadings on dynamic conception of knowledge and learnability of intelligence. The factor appeared to be characterized by a conception according to which knowledge is theory-laden and an agent's own constructive efforts are essential in knowledge formation. This dynamic conception of knowledge may be contrasted with a passive conception according to which knowledge is unproblematic and ready to be assimilated. On the same factor a conception of an agent's cognitive competencies and intelligence as dynamically developing and learnable was loaded--in contrast to a view of individual competencies as static and differences between students pedagogically problematic. In addition, on the same factor principles (.61) as well as practices (.43) of progressive inquiry were loaded. It is intriguing that the practice of using information technology as a collaborative tool was loaded on the same factor. This might be explained by assuming that, associated with a dynamic conception of knowle dge and learnability of intelligence, is a view of collaborative work through ICT as a form of distributed intelligence that enhances individual intelligence (Pea, 1993). It is meaningful to support collaboration between students only if it is assumed that they may learn important skills from each other. The factor Fl is thus called Dynamic Conception of Knowledge and Learnability of Intelligence.

The second factor (F2) is characterized by high loadings on ICT skills and intensive use of ICT. Apparently, teachers who are experts in ICT also intensively use ICT in planning and doing their teaching. In addition, ICT for implementing practices of progressive inquiry was loaded rather strongly on the second factor indicating that especially teachers who have expertise in and access to ICT are using ICT for to support a research-like process of progressive inquiry. Further, ICT support for collaborative learning had a fair loading on the F2 factor; this factor is called Skillful and Intensive Usage of ICT.

Characteristic of the third factor (F3) are high loadings on the principles of using ICT for fostering progressive inquiry as well as teachers' willingness to participate in technical and pedagogical training of ICT. Presumably, teachers who are not proficient in ICT but have sophisticated pedagogical conceptions are willing to learn new ICT to reconstruct their instructional practices. In addition, principles and practices of progressive inquiry loaded relatively strongly on the factor. The factor is called Learning Pedagogically Meaningful Practices of Using ICT.

Factor 4 (F4) shows high loadings on strength of pedagogical community and community support for educational use of information technology. This factor appeared to represent a school community's commitment to undertake pedagogical development and support for educational use of the ICT. This factor is called Strong Pedagogical Community.

How Teachers Representing Different Age and Gender Groups Used ICT

Relationships between teachers' age and gender and the principal component scores obtained through the factor analysis are now examined. Table 4 presents mean principal component scores for teachers representing different age and gender groups.

Young female teachers obtained the highest F1 scores. Younger teachers scored higher than older teachers did on learnability of intelligence and dynamic conception of knowledge scales associated with Fl. Apparently, newer generations of teachers consider knowledge to be more problematic than older generations and believe that it is possible to enhance intelligence. There was also a gender effect indicating that female teachers, more than male ones, emphasized a dynamic conception of knowledge and learnability of intelligence.

The highest F2 scores were obtained by young and middle-aged male teachers. Male teachers' F2 scores were higher in all age groups than female teachers' corresponding scores; apparently, expertise in and intensive use of ICT is currently typical for young and middle-age male teachers whereas only the group of young female teachers has some familiarity with ICT. However, it is encouraging that 75.8% (n = 466) of the teachers (representing all age groups and both genders) have a computer in their home, and practically all of the teachers access ICT at school. There may be certain variables that constrained use of accessible ICT equipment, such as old technology, lack of relevant programs or inconvenient location of computers, but the fact that a majority of teachers have access to ICT is an important prerequisite for their improving ICT skills.

There were no significant differences between the groups concerning the F3 scores: Apparently, teachers representing all age groups and both of the genders acknowledged the importance of using ICT for fostering participation in progressive inquiry, were ready to learn ICT, and recognized the desirability of principles and practices of progressive inquiry. A separate analysis indicated that the teachers emphasized the importance, for meaningful learning, of pedagogical training as compared with technical training in using ICT.

On the F4 scale, the young female teachers and old male teachers obtained the lowest scores. There was a statistically significant interaction effect indicating that young male teachers and old female teachers estimated the strength of their pedagogical community as higher than did the other groups of teachers. Intuitively, young male teachers who have a central role in information technology have a very important role in their pedagogical communities. Correspondingly, older and very experienced female teachers may have an established strong position in their community.

Relations between intensity of using ICT and factors Fl, F3 and F4 were analyzed. A factorial analysis of variance was performed by using F1 as dependent and intensity of using ICT (low, moderate, high) as an independent variable. Age (F(l,553)=15.5, p[less than].000l) and gender (F(l,553)=9.5, p[less than].002) of the subject were used as covariates. The analysis revealed that intensity of using ICT was associated with F1 (Dynamic Conception of Knowledge and Leamability of Intelligence) in a statistically significant way.

The highest F1 score was obtained by the group of teachers who used ICT with high (M = .19, [SD.sub.-].96) or moderate (M .16, [SD.sub.-]= 1.1) intensity. By contrast, the mean for teachers who did not use ICT (M = -26, SD = .90) was at a lower level. However, there were no corresponding differences concerning F4 or F3.

DISCUSSION

The purpose of the study was to analyze relations between teachers' pedagogical thinking and their expertise in information and communication technology. The study involved constructing a self-report questionnaire that was designed to assess teachers' skills and practices of using ICT and their conceptions of learning, intelligence, and knowledge. As indicated in the method section, a general problem of studies based on self-report questionnaires is that the subjects usually have correct notions about socially desirable answers. It is also important to note that teachers' actual pedagogical practices were not examined, only their reports about their practices (as measured by the questionnaire). The researchers made efforts to address this problem by asking the teachers to simultaneously assess pedagogical principles and how they actualized those principles in their pedagogical practices.

This solution appeared to provide very important information about differences between the teachers according to their ICT skills. The results of the study indicated that only a small percentage of teachers had adequate skills of information technology although a majority of them had access to computers either in their home or at school. These results should be related to the massive inservice training effort aimed at improving ICT skills of teachers, which has been carried out in Helsinki during last few years (Sinko & Lehtinen, 1999). The large-scale improvement of teachers' computer skills seems to be a more difficult problem than had been anticipated in Finland's national strategies.

The study indicated that teachers who intensively used information technology emphasized the importance of using information technology for facilitating students' participation in progressive inquiry, collaborative learning, the learners' active engagement in knowledge formation process, and learnability of intelligence more than other teachers. The results of the present study indicated that there is a discrepancy between teachers' pedagogical principles that commonly emphasize active construction of knowledge, and their actual (i.e., reported) pedagogical practices. However, this apparent mismatch between theory and practice did not appear to be so strong in the context of teachers who actively use ICT; they appear to have adequate pedagogical means for pursuing new pedagogical practices.

In addition, it was revealed that middle-aged female teachers, who do not have as strong skills in ICT as some of their male students, emphasized a dynamic conception of knowledge and learnability of intelligence more strongly than did their male colleagues. These female teachers appeared also to be willing to deepen their expertise in the ICT in order to develop and explore new pedagogical practices. An implication of the study is that to facilitate ICT usage by teachers having extensive pedagogical expertise, it is essential to thoroughly subsume the use of ICT at school under pedagogical goals. Currently, ICT is used most intensively by teachers who are relative experts in ICT and, presumably, very interested in information technology as such. In many cases these teachers use up to 80-90% of computer laboratory tine. With respect to teachers' professional development, it is crucial to emphasize the importance of changing current pedagogical practices to answer the challenges of the knowledge society. Only awareness of this need for pedagogical change and of the new pedagogical possibilities offered by ICT could create in teachers a strong enough motivation to use ICT intensively in the learning-instruction process and to develop their technical ICT skills (Lehtinen, Sinko, & Hakkarainen, in press).

(1.) Center for Research on Networked Learning and Knowledge Building Department of Psychology P.O. Box 13, SF-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

(2.) Knowledge Media Laboratory Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration

(3.) Center for Learning Research University of Turku 

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Table 1
Scales for Measuring Teachers' ICT
Skills and Their Pedagogical Thinking
Scale                          Description of dimensions
                               measured
Technical ICT skills           High
Intensity of Using ICT         Intensive usage
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry    Emphasizing importance
principle                      of using ICT for supporting
                               a research-like process
                               of inquiry
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry    ICT is used to actually
practice                       implement progressive
                               inquiry leaming in practice
Community support for          Active participation in
ICT usage                      pedagogical development
                               projects concerning ICT
Willingness to learn ICT       Willing to learn ICT
ICT support for collaborative  Emphasizing importance
learning                       of using ICT as a tool of
                               peer collaboration
Learnability of intelligence   Students' cognitive
                               competencies may
                               dynamically develop
Progressive-inquiry principle  Emphasizing importance
                               of engagement in research-
                               like process of inquiry
Progressive-inquiry practice   Implementing research-like
                               process of inquiry in practice
Dynamic conception of          Emphasizing students active
knowledge                      role in knowledge formation;
                               seeing knowledge as a
                               problematic phenomenon
Strength of pedagogical        Strong pedagogical
community                      community
Scale
Technical ICT skills           Low
Intensity of Using ICT         No usage or low
                               usage
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry    ICT is seen as a
principle                      means for carrying out
                               routine tasks
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry    Progressive inquiry is
practice                       not actually imple-
                               mented by the means
                               of ICT
Community support for          No active participation
ICT usage                      in pedagogical
                               development projects
                               concerning ICT
Willingness to learn ICT       Not willing to learn ICT
ICT support for collaborative  Seeing ICT as a tool
learning                       for individual learning
                               or a threat that may
                               isolate students from
                               one another
Learnability of intelligence   Students' cognitive
                               competencies are fixed
                               or insufficient for
                               progressive inquiry
Progressive-inquiry principle  Emphasizing teachers'
                               controlled instruction
Progressive-inquiry practice   No actual implementa
                               tion of inquiry learning
Dynamic conception of          Knowledge formation
knowledge                      as memorizing and
                               knowledge transmission
Strength of pedagogical        Weak pedagogical
community                      community
Table 2
The Reliabilities of the Scales
Scale                                   Number of  Cronbach  Item Mean
                                          items
Technical ICT skills                       11        .92       2.58
Intensity of Using ICT                      7        .85       2.67
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry principle       6        .69       3.66
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry practice        7        .87       2.60
Community support for ICT usage             2        .58       2.60
Willingness to learn ICT                    5        .65       3.80
ICT support for collaborative learning      2        .84       2.81
Learnability of intelligence                7        .64       3.52
Progressive-inquiry principle               7        .72       4.10
Progressive-inquiry practice                7        .82       3.54
Dynamic conception of knowledge             9        .74       3.68
Strength of pedagogical community           5        .70       3.55
Scale                                   Minimum/
                                         maximum
Technical ICT skills                     1.4/4.5
Intensity of Using ICT                   1.9/4.0
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry principle    3.2/4.4
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry practice     2.3/3.0
Community support for ICT usage          2.6/2.6
Willingness to learn ICT                 3.5/4.4
ICT support for collaborative learning  2.55/3.07
Learnability of intelligence             2.8/4.0
Progressive-inquiry principle            3.5/4.5
Progressive-inquiry practice             3.2/3.8
Dynamic conception of knowledge          3.2/4.5
Strength of pedagogical community        3.2/3.8
Table 3
Factor Loading of the Scales Used on the Study (Principal Component
Analysis, Four-factor Varimax Solution)
Variable                                Fl    F2    F3    F4
Technical lOT skills                          .87
Intensity of Using ICT                        .89
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry principle               .71
ICT-for-progressive-inquiry practice          .67   .33
Community support for ICT usage                           .80
Willingness to learn ICT                .58   .34
ICT support for collaborative learning              .71
Leamability of intelligence             .75
Progressive-inquiry principle           .61         .48
Progressive-inquiry practice            .43         .36
Dynamic conception of knowledge         .83
Strength of pedagogical community                         .75
Percent of variance                     19.1  18.4  13.0  12.0
Note: Four factors explain 62.4% of variance. Loadings under .30
are not presented in the Table.
Table 4
Mean Factor Scores of F1, F2, F3, and F4 as a Function of Teacher's
Age and Gender. Means, Standard Deviations, and F-value
AGE                                  Gender
                                     Female        Male
                                       M      SD    M     SD
F1: Dynamic Conception of Knowledge
and Learnability of Intelligence
Young                                 .29     .98   .01   .79
Middle age                            .26     .96   .01  1.06
Older                                -.17     .97  -.52  1.08
F2: Skillful and Intensive Use of
ICT
Young                                 .09     .81   .92  1.02
Middle age                           -.17     .85   .71  1.06
Older                                -.33     .89  -.04  1.16
F3: Learning Pedagogically
Meaningful Practices of Using ICT
Young                                 .11     .91  -.36   .91
Middle age                            .14     .94   .03   .88
Older                                -.03    1.05  -.06  1.21
F4: Strong Pedagogical Community
Young                                -.21     .96   .23  1.02
Middle age                           -.02     .97  -.12   .97
Older                                 .17    1.00  -.12  1.16
Number of
teachers                             112           42
Young                                132           51
Middle age                           192           53
Older
AGE                                  Results of ANOVA
                                     Source                   F
F1: Dynamic Conception of Knowledge
and Learnability of Intelligence
Young                                Age                   12.5 ***
Middle age                           Gender                 9.2 **
Older                                Age x Gender            .08
F2: Skillful and Intensive Use of
ICT
Young                                Age                   17.2 ***
Middle age                           Gender                57.3 ***
Older                                Age x Gender           3.8 *
F3: Learning Pedagogically
Meaningful Practices of Using ICT
Young                                Age                     .58
Middle age                           Gender                 4.46 *
Older                                Age x Gender           1.24
F4: Strong Pedagogical Community
Young                                Age
Middle age                           Gender                  .69
Older                                Age x Gender            .22
Number of                            Degrees of Freedom     5.76 **
teachers                             Age (2,577)
Young                                Gender (1,577)
Middle age                           Age x Gender (2,577)
Older
Note: (*)p[less than].05,
(**)p[less than].01,
(***)p[less than].001