A study of trainee teachers’ image of practising teachers and their ICT expectations

Abstract

Digital illiteracy is one of the great challenges of education. In our information society, an adequate level of digital proficiency is an important requirement and teachers’ skills, personality, competence and professional experience are important factors in determining the efficiency of the teaching-learning process. This research has two goals. First, we tried to find out what characteristics a “good” and a “bad” teacher would have based on the trainee teachers’ own experience as secondary school students. We also wanted to know what they think about the social roles of teachers; about the importance of native language in education; what expectations they have regarding the computer skills and competences of secondary school teachers; and what experience they have regarding the use of ICT equipment in the education process. The answers to the open questions about teachers were grouped into four categories: professional expectations, preparedness, teaching skills, personality traits and behaviour. We developed four statistically relevant factors to determine the level of teachers’ computer skills and we used a set of questions containing 10 items to examine the experience of trainee teachers regarding the use of ICT in education. Our study reveals the situation of Hungarian vocational training from Romania, which is a key factor for high-quality teacher training. Keywords: teacher image, computer skills and competences, trainee-teachers