Exploring factors influencing pre-service teacher’s digital teaching competence and the mediating effects of data literacy: empirical evidence from China

Abstract The development of pre-service teachers’ digital teaching competence is crucial for effectively infusing technology into teaching. With the growing importance of data in education, it is imperative to explore the influencing factors of digital teaching competence and the potential role of data literacy in facilitating competence. Thus, this study focused on investigating the factors influencing pre-service teachers’ digital teaching competence, namely technology attitudes, technology operations, technology ethics, and data literacy. Additionally, it examined the potential effect of data literacy on digital teaching competence. The study involved 244 Chinese pre-service teachers, and a Structural Equation Model (SEM) was created using SPSS and SmartPLS for analysis. The findings highlighted that technology attitudes, technology ethics, and data literacy directly influenced pre-service teachers’ digital teaching competence. Data literacy fully mediated the relationship between technology operations and digital teaching competence, and partially mediated the relationships between technology attitudes and digital teaching competence, as well as between technology ethics and digital teaching competence. Moreover, technology ethics acted as a partial mediator between technology attitudes and both digital teaching competence and data literacy. These results indicated that fostering positive technology attitudes, technology operations, and technology ethics could enhance pre-service teachers’ data literacy and improve their digital teaching competence.