Abstract:

Does the COVID-19 pandemic cause a "turbo boost" of digital change in the educational system? Digitalization was the driving force of globalization long before the pandemic, so citizens in all age groups need to acquire appropriate digital skills and competencies (UNESCO, 2018). The European Union (EU) has introduced corresponding policies, in particular DigComp (Ferrari, 2013) for adults, and transferred them to the education sector with the European Framework for the Digital Competence for Educators (DigCompEdu; Redecker, 2017). DigCompEdu emphasizes the use of digital tools and computational thinking, but also aspects of empowerment. These high-level policies are leading to changes in mid-level policies in the states (KMK, 2019; Eickelmann, 2020). However, the changes will only be finished when they become measurable at the low level of empirical data in schools and on campus. Probably we will not get an answer on the extent to which the pandemic has affected these empirical data. But what is interesting, are the empirical data collected shortly before the arrival of the pandemic in the European Union. Put another way: one last point of measurement of a COVID-19 free education system.

Whether or not there is a pandemic, it is crucial that teachers integrate digitization and digitalization as a topic and content in their daily work. To do so, they need to use digital (educational) tools (DET) and resources in the classroom for teaching and managing schoolwork in general (Beißwenger et. al., 2020). This profound digital change in education is influenced by several factors: systemic and institutional conditions, such as access to technical resources, appropriate conditions, opportunities for professional development and a supportive community. Other factors relate to more personal aspects: motivation, teaching practice, perception of ICT in the classroom, beliefs about usefulness and efficiency, or understanding of the learning of subject specific content (Utterberg, Lundin & Lindström 2017).

We conducted a survey to investigate teachers' motivation in using DET for lesson preparation (DET-LP) and teaching (DET-T) in various school subjects, which were classified into seven groups. The survey focused on the teachers (N=50) of one secondary school in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. We measured the actual use of DET-LP and DET-T using an exploratory questionnaire with a total of 65 items. This survey was conducted under pre-pandemic conditions (Nov.-Dec. 2019), at that time the pandemic was only visible on the Asian horizon. The first analysis shows two results: 1) teachers were already using a wide range of D(E)Ts with different usage patterns, and the relationship between DET-LP and DET-T is significant in all subjects (X2 (9, N = 45) = 18.9, p = .0263), and 2) teachers were motivated to use DET before the pandemic. The pandemic led to an expansion of the study, so we are currently integrating a second measuring point, within the time of the pandemic, and therefore two additional secondary schools will be integrated. We are confident about a third measuring point, the time post-pandemic.

Keywords:

Digital Competence, DigCompEdu, Digital Educational Tools, COVID-19.