An exploration of how early childhood education lecturers train pre- service teachers to use technologies at a Nigerian University.

Abstract

The Nigerian government initiated the introduction of educational policies for technology integration in Early Childhood Education due to its relevance in the cognitive and social learning of pre-schoolers (Obiweluzor, 2015). Unfortunately, the teachers in both private and public Early Childhood Education (ECE) centres were not competent to handle the technologies provided; which is of great concern to both the federal government and other stakeholders. Calls were made by the Nigerian government to enhance the technological competence of pre-service teacher training as Early Childhood Education teachers. Thus, ECE lecturers are seen as key role players in the development of technological knowledge and skills of the ECE preservice teachers. In response to the lacunae identified between policy intention for the integration of technologies in ECE centres and the poor integration of technologies in the ECE centres, this study explored how ECE lecturers train ECE pre-service teachers in the use of technology at a University in Nigeria. This qualitative case study was located within the interpretative paradigm. Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) model underpinned the study. It posed three research questions, namely: What technologies do ECE lecturers use to train ECE pre-service teachers? How do ECE lecturers train ECE pre-service teachers in the use of these technologies in terms of content and pedagogy? Why do ECE lecturers train ECE pre-service teachers to use these technologies the way they do? Sampling was purposive. All the eight ECE lecturers with over five years teaching experience at ECE department of the university were requested to participate in this study. Data were generated through individual interviews, lesson observation, document analysis, focus group interviews, collages and concept maps. Content analysis was used to analyse the data. The findings indicated that there was a mismatch between Nigerian national policy for integration of technology and the enactment of policy for integration of technologies at CB University. Moreover, the ECE lecturers lacked the Technological Knowledge (TK) and Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK) required for effective integration of technology in their lessons, which lead to inefficient training of the ECE preservice teachers in the use of technology. Insufficient technologies, insufficient integration of technology in the ECE curriculum and insufficient technological knowledge (TK) and technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) were factors that constrained the effective training of ECE preservice teachers in the use of technologies. The findings of this study highlight the need for the sociocultural factors to be the centerpoint on which the intersection of the various components of the TPACK model hinges. Hence, the study makes a recommendation for a modification to the TPACK framework which has until now fore-grounded only technological content knowledge, to a new model to make room for the explanation of teachers’ socio-cultural backgrounds (context) when investigating pedagogical practices.