Educators’ enacted beliefs about the use of print and digital media in early and middle childhood classrooms

Abstract

Teachers hold conflicting beliefs about the usefulness and role of print and digital media in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to explore teachers’ enacted beliefs (beliefs that explain classroom practice) about using print and digital media. Early childhood and elementary teachers (N = 519) from a rural U.S. state were surveyed. They similarly reported using both print and digital media in their classrooms for a variety of purposes (i.e., because of the affordances of the media and their context, benefits for student learning, the independence with children can use them, to reward students, and for leisure and collaborative activities). Teachers at both levels held stronger enacted beliefs about print than digital media in all domains except rewarding students (for which digital was higher), but differences were sometimes small in size. The most consistent predictor of enacted beliefs for using digital media was professional development, although it did not predict usage for learning purposes. This suggests that greater professional development could be important for supporting teachers in deciding what, when, why, and how to integrate digital media into their classroom to suit a variety of other purposes such as promoting independence or fostering collaboration.