Key Stage 2 teachers' engagement with ICT : a mixed methods study investigating the effect of school size and social capital

• Main Author: Thompson, Julia
• Published: University of East Anglia 2008
• Subjects: 371.33
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.504846

The rapidly developing role of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) is evident in educational reforms across the world. While ICT standards in the United Kingdom are improving, the issue of teacher engagement remains a concern, as it appears to be central to developing successful and innovative leT in primary schools. This mixed methods study investigated Key Stage 2 teachers' engagement with ICT, in relation to school size and access to social relationships, operationalised through the theory of social capital. . In the first, quantitative, phase, the research questions focused on mapping general patterns of engagement, in terms of how teacher-level and school-level factors affected teacher engagement with ICT at Key Stage 2. Findings were obtained from a small-scale, cross-sectional survey of 67 teachers at 27 schools. In the second, qualitative, phase, a purposefully selected subset enabled individual interviews with 24 teachers from stage one to explore in-depth the results from the first phase. The interviews permitted identification and examination of emerging themes from the survey data, which could then be explored in conjunction with school size and the theoretical framework of social capital. The two phases were connected in that the qualitative stage built upon the findings of the quantitative stage. Datasets were mixed and interpreted in the discussion. Conclusions from the multi-level model suggest that smaller schools are able to procure maximum access to social capital wealth from a meso-organisational level. Larger schools are able to garner· most benefit from social capital resources emanating from a micro-organisational level. This study offers an evaluative structure, which gives schools a framework within which to begin to practically assess circumstances in their own organisation.