Emerging teachers’ conceptions about their current use of ICT in vocational education

Abstract

This article presents emerging results from an ongoing phenomenographic study that examines teachers’ conceptions of ICT-enhanced teaching and learning in vocational education. Twenty three teachers from three Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions participated in semi-structured in-depth interviews about the role of ICT in their teaching and profession. The emerging findings reveal that vocational education teachers consider ICT use for teaching vocational courses in five different ways. Specifically, they saw the use of ICT for teaching: 1) as a response to external expectations; 2) as a means to access information and resources; 3) as a delivery tool; 4) as media to support active learning; and 5) as an environment for preparing students for their chosen profession. While some of these findings are in line with those of similar phenomenographic studies in higher and tertiary education, conceptions a) and e) tend to be more distinct in vocational education settings.