Technology integration of pre-service teachers explained by attitudes and beliefs, competency, access, and experience

The overall aim of this study was to map the technology integration of pre-service teachers at the start of their initial teacher education program, since beginning teachers indicated that they do not feel fully prepared to integrate technology effectively in the classroom. Attitudes and beliefs towards technology (will), learning experience in technology use (experience), competency of technology use (skill), and access to technology (tool) (expansion of the WST model, Knezek & Christensen, 2008) of 398 pre-service teachers were examined. The results of regression analyses indicated that the WST model explained the variation in pre-service teachers' technology integration (R2 = 0.60). The attitudes and beliefs were found to be the strongest influence and access to technology the weakest. Adding experience to the model (WEST model) did not improve the prediction, although, experience was found to affect technology integration significantly when the measurements were considered as one scale. Concerns about the structure of the WST model were discussed.