Teacher Computer Skill and Expertise and their Use of Computers The most expert teachers, not surprisingly, typically make the most use of computers in their professional work. Even among teachers of the same groups of subjects, the
differences between the most computer-skilled and the least-skilled teachers are substantial. For example, among secondary academic subject teachers, those who report having 4 or 5 of the computer skills we asked about also used
computers professionally in half-again as many ways as teachers who had 3 or fewer computer skills (4.1 vs. 2.6).
Having more computer skills was also associated with having students use computers more frequently and in more ways. For most subject-matter groups, among the teachers who assigned computer work to at least one class, the
greater the number of computer skills self-reported, the more often they used computers with their students (in their sampled class). This was most clearly true for vocational education teachers, secondary teachers of mixed
subjects, and English teachers. In those subjects, teachers who assigned more computer work also knew more about computers themselves; those who assigned less work, knew less. That was not true, however, for math
teachers or for foreign language teachers (nor for computer teachers or business education teachers, most of which reported high computer use and high personal computer skill). In those subjects, teachers who assigned more
computer work professed no greater knowledge about how to use computers than did those who assigned less. (The first column of Table 20 and Figure 20 show correlations between teacher computer skills and frequency of
assigning computer work.) FIGURE 20: CORRELATION BETWEEN NUMBER OF COMPUTER SKILLS REPORTED AND
EXTENT OF USE OF EACH TYPE OF SOFTWARE, BY SUBJECT/LEVEL
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TABLE 20: CORRELATION BETWEEN NUMBER OF COMPUTER SKILLS REPORTED AND
EXTENT OF USE OF EACH TYPE OF SOFTWARE, BY SUBJECT/LEVEL
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Teacher personal skill in using computers was especially associated with having students use certain kinds of software—most commonly, presentation software and multimedia authoring software. However, the patterns of correlation coefficients differed by subject, as Table 20 shows. The most technically skilled social studies teachers, for example, had their students use Web browsers more than less computer-skilled social studies teachers did, but among science teachers, Web use did not vary by teacher computer skill. In general, it appears that for any given group of subject-matter teachers, the higher correlations between teacher computer skill and student use of that type of software were for those applications that might be seen as being on the leading edge of computer use in that subject. Thus, the highest correlations for math teachers were for word processing software, Web browsers, spreadsheets and presentation software. For science teachers, teacher computer skill was most related to use of spreadsheets and presentation software. The only high correlation for foreign language teachers was for electronic mail use. And so forth.
If we try to compare whether computer skills are more closely associated with increased professional use or increased instructional use, in correlational terms, the relationship is clearly strongest for professional
use, particularly when expertise is measured by the number of different computer skills they reported having. The correlation between number of computer skills and variety of professional use is almost twice
as large as that between skills and variety and frequency of student software use (r=.52 vs. r=.29).[16]
Thus, computer skill translates much more directly into professional use than into instructional use.
We can see that fact more clearly when we look at particular skills and corresponding student software use. Even if teachers themselves are skilled in a particular type of software, that is not a guarantee that
they will have their students use that software. For example, although one-fourth of teachers report knowing how to "prepare a slide show using presentation software," only 34% of that group (and 6% of
other teachers) say that they have had students use presentation software on three or more lessons. Similarly, only 32% of teachers who feel skilled in developing a multimedia document using Hyperstudio
or other authoring software have their students do so. Even in the case of Web use and word processing use, teacher skill does not guarantee use in teaching. Only 41% of the teachers who report they can use
a Web search engine actually assign students to use the Web, and only 60% of teachers who report being able to imbed graphics into a word processor document also report assigning their students to use word processing.
Some computer skills suggest a greater readiness to have students use computers in a variety of ways. In particular, teachers who feel capable of developing a multimedia document using Hyperstudio or similar
authoring software on average have their students use computers more frequently and with a greater variety of software. This is independently true for teachers of almost every subject, and for most
subjects, multimedia-authoring-capable teachers have students use computers more and with a greater variety of software than do other teachers teaching the same subject. (See supplementary Table A-8.) A
second computer skill associated with a teacher's having students use computers more and with greater variety is "preparing a slide show." In particular, elementary teachers, English teachers, and secondary
teachers of mixed academic subjects who feel able to produce slide shows using presentation software are among the most active computer-assigning teachers in their subject. In sum, there seems to be a
clear order of difficulty among computer skills that relates to the variety of ways that teachers are able and willing to oversee student computer use. In other words, whether or not the teacher knows how to
use a Web browser doesn't have much of an effect on whether they use a type of software with students. But some skills such as producing a slide show or a multimedia document clearly are indicators of a
teacher's ability and interest in having students use computers in a variety of different ways and on a relatively frequent basis.
Teacher Computer Skills and Expertise and their Objectives for Student Computer Use
The computer skills that teachers hold, both specific skills and their overall expertise, are also related to the objectives that they prioritize for their
students' computer use. In other words, teachers who choose certain objectives as most important are more computer-skilled on average than those who choose other objectives. Figure 21 and Table 21 show the average number of
computer skills reported by teachers who selected different objectives as primary, separately for elementary-level teachers, secondary academic subject-matter teachers, and so on. On average, the most computer-skilled
teachers are those who value computers for their role in helping students learn to make presentations to an audience, to communicate better, and to analyze information. By an even larger margin, teachers who see remediation as one
of their most important objectives for using computers with students are less
skilled computer users than teachers who have other objectives. For example, the average elementary level teacher who selected "present information to an audience" as one of their three main objectives reported having about 4.4 skills compared to just 2.6 among teachers choosing remediation as a primary objective. That difference, as shown in Table 21 is roughly three-quarters of a standard deviation.
FIGURE 21: MEAN NUMBER OF TEACHER'S COMPUTER SKILLS
BY TEACHER'S PRIMARY OBJECTIVE FOR STUDENT COMPUTER USE
TABLE 21: MEAN NUMBER OF TEACHER'S COMPUTER SKILLS
BY TEACHER'S PRIMARY OBJECTIVE FOR STUDENT COMPUTER USE
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The seven computer skills can be ranked according to which ones are differentially held (reported) by teachers with different objectives versus which ones are reported about equally frequently among teachers with different objectives. (See supplementary Table A-9.) In particular, the ability to use a World Wide Web search engine, although common among teachers regardless of their objectives for student computer use, is reported by more teachers who selected either information-related objectives ("find out" or "analyze") or communications-related objective ("communicate electronically" or "present to an audience") than by those who valued skills-related objectives (skills-mastery or remediation). Similarly, multimedia document creation skills are reported by more than a third of teachers prioritizing objectives such as collaboration and presentation to an audience, but only by 12% of teachers favoring remediation uses of computers. The same pattern is found when we consider which teachers are "very experienced" on both Macintosh and Windows platforms or "expert" on one of them: the teachers most likely to be so have "electronic communications" as one of their main objectives for student computer use, followed by those who want students to analyze data or present information to an audience. The least likely to be very experienced across platforms or expert in one are teachers valuing remediation objectives and those valuing computers for helping students to work better independently.
Finally, we examined whether computer-assigning teachers who are very experienced or expert on
Macintosh platforms differ from teachers with similar expertise on Windows platforms in the kinds of objectives they have for student computer use. Because teachers' objectives are related to the subject
and level they teach and computer platform is as well (to a lesser extent), we did some analysis of teacher objectives within specific subject areas. Some subjects show larger differences than others in
the objectives for computer use held by Macintosh and Windows platform-knowledgeable teachers. The largest differences are among English teachers and the combination of computer teachers and business
education teachers. The smallest differences were for social studies teachers and other applied secondary teachers. Across all subjects, and generally within them as well, Macintosh-knowledgeable teachers were more
likely to value having students use computers to present information to an audience, to find out about ideas and information, and to express themselves in writing. Windows-knowledgeable teachers were
more likely to value computers for their help in having students master skills, computer skills in particular as well as subject-matter skills, and to work independently. In addition, among English teachers and
computer/business education teachers, those most experienced or expert in the use of the Macintosh were more likely than the Windows-experts to have "students learning to work collaboratively" as an
objective. Windows-expert (or very experienced) English teachers were more likely than Mac-experts to use computers to assist in the remediation of skills not learned well. Lastly, among computer and
business education teachers, the Mac specialists were more likely than the Windows specialists to state the value of computers for students learning to communicate electronically with other people. All of these
differences were close to or greater than 10 percentage points, as shown in supplementary Table A-10.