Pre-Service Teacher Education: Student Digital Technology Skills for Best Practice in the STEM Classroom

Abstract

This paper explores digital technology skills in commencing undergraduate pre-service teachers at a large Australian metropolitan university by surveying all first year students over a period of eight years (n=2821). The survey gathered self-reported data using Likert-scale questions and this was analysed using descriptive statistics. It was found that the technological skills of many of the students was lower than that assumed by tertiary educators. Additionally, there was no evidence of an increase in the general technological skills in commencing students over the 2012 to 2019 period. These findings have implications for the design of units in pre-service teacher STEM courses.