Abstract:

The international Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu, (Redecker et al. 2017, Vuorikari et al., 2017)) is a prominent model that provides orientation for the various professional areas addressed by teachers from secondary schools when dealing with digital media. A rough distinction is made between a) professional and b) pedagogic competencies of the teacher and their view of c) the competences of the learner.
Correspondingly, we wanted to know what professional understanding teachers of early years (K-4) bring to the issue of digital literacy. Therefore, we asked them about their private use of digital media as well as various aspects of their professional media use. Other international studies on the influence of teachers' attitudes on the use of digital media were fundamental (Ertmer 2005; Ertmer et al.2012; Kim et al. 2012). We – as others (Güneş & Bahçivan 2018) – wanted to extend this question (Ottenbreit-Leftwich & al. 2010; Admiraal et al. 2017) to early education.
Based on an international qualitative comparative study in the EU-COST 1410 Project DigiLitEY with about 80 teachers from eight countries, this paper presents the results of German teachers in the area of early education.
For this purpose, we first transcribed the semi-standardized, guideline-based interviews and indexed using a common code tree with MAXQDA based on the content analysis (Kuckartz 2001) of the competencies of the DigCompEdu framework. It becomes clear that the orientation of the teachers, although their previous education was very different, shows apparent similarities.
Both the professional areas addressed and those for which no statements can be found are almost similar. It is noticeable that the teachers focus on their advantages provided by digital media in the preparation and implementation of lessons. However, as regards their students, their main aim seems to provide them with a critical user perspective - which means: to prevent them from using digital media.
Potentials for collaborative work and digital media production are rather not addressed. The deficit of digital competence of teachers and pupils, which can be observed more strongly internationally (Sang et al. 2009) - but especially in Central Europe (IEA 2013) is possibly not only a technical deficit (McGarr & McDonagh 2019) but can also be explained by the lack of perspective on pupils. The result also may challenges university education to rethink the professional understanding of teachers and correspondingly changed measures (e.g., a greater share of theory and epistemological knowledge) with more considerable influence on personal convictions (Vongkulluksn et al.2018; Sang et al. 2010).

Keywords:

digital media, digital literacy, digital competence, teachers beliefs, research projects