Self-Аssessment of Teachers’ Ability to Apply Educational Computer Software in Educational Practice

Abstract

Teaching represents the basic and most beneficial aspect of education. The quality of teaching is continually improved by the introduction of innovative teaching techniques and modern teaching methods. Contemporary pedagogical innovations pertaining to teaching are based on the application of information and communication technologies in education. Therefore, the educational computer software is one of the most systematic and most creative tools used in schools with the purpose of improving the concept of digital teaching practices. The educational computer software is an innovative teaching tool for an independent creation and presentation of teaching units by means of digital technologies whose purpose is the achievement of students’ total and active commitment and motivation. The goal of this research was to examine the teachers’ self-assessment regarding their ability to apply the educational computer software in their teaching practices. The methods used were the descriptive method and the scaling technique with the Likert-type scale (ORSON) containing 35 items. The research sample consisted of 500 teachers from Central and Southern Serbia. Four factors were extracted by the factor analysis, which explain 53.19% of the variance: digital competences, the advantages of ORS, ORS as a teaching tool, and practical application. The research results show that teachers are qualified enough for the practical application of the educational computer software. Also, the analysis of their responses proves that they regard the educational computer software as a significant and innovative teaching tool. The research determined a statistically significant difference in the subjects’ responses considering the independent research variables: gender, type of school, and teaching experience (p<0.05).

Keywords

• educational computer software
• teaching process
• teacher
• innovation
• digital competencies