ATTITUDES TOWARD THE INTEGRATION OF DIGITAL GAMES INTO INSTRUCTION IN TEACHER EDUCATION COLLEGES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

Aim/Purpose This paper examines how senior academic staff from a large sample of teacher education colleges regard the integration of digital games into teacher instruc-tion. These colleges serve general or religious populations, and we examine what, in practice, their policy and vision were in this regard in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Background The sudden adoption of online teaching-learning due to the pandemic has been termed disruptive in that it drastically disturbed higher education in Israel and worldwide. The senior academic staff of Israel’s colleges of education was re-sponsible for leading policy decision-making during this period. The use of digi-tal games for pedagogic purposes may be direct when used for knowledge ac-quisition and reinforcement and student development or indirect. Methodology Using semi-structured interviews, the current study applied an interpretive-con-structivist approach to examine how senior academic staff from several teacher education colleges perceived the integration of digital games into teacher in-struction and elicit their policy and vision in this regard, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Contribution The findings suggest that discussions surrounding technology-related vision and policy and their translation into practice should relate to the specific cultural needs and academic preparedness of the population(s) served by the college.