Differences when ICT is used
Activity and Learning Teaching IWBs Other-ICT
The main purpose of the quantitative pre- and post-assessment data was to help with analysis at a ‘local’ (case-study) level rather than ‘global’ level across the project. A large number of factors affect the learning and its measurement – including the nature of the school, the classes involved, the teachers, the schemes of work, and the resources available – and these need to be considered case by case. In each combination of subject and Key Stage, a more detailed analysis of the differences in classroom activity across the teachers involved is continuing and the assessment responses will be examined at a fine level of detail in order to help identify the learning achieved under the conditions pertaining during each phase of the project.
Whilst no generalisation from global analysis of quantitative data is possible in this research design, it has been possible to carry out a number of analyses of post-test attainment for particular sets of teachers, using pre-test as covariate, and it is reasonable to consider what patterns have emerged to date in looking across the analysis of particular comparisons, and what hypotheses for future investigation might be generated from these instances.
The overall pattern was of ‘no significant difference’ in Phase 1 between classes taught using ICT and those not taught using ICT. This confirmed the indications from the qualitative data that, despite the greater attention and interest that might be generated by ICT, teachers were not yet able to convert this in to significant improvements in learning. Indeed, there was a general trend for the non-ICT teacher to achieve better results, and when the qualitative data was examined for possible explanations for this, it emerged that, in most cases, the greater proportion of high-level interactivity was demonstrated by the non-ICT using teacher.
This produced a new hypothesis, for which there is already strong evidence from various sets of qualitative data, that the level of interactivity of teaching is a more important factor for successful learning than whether ICT is used or not. Using a combination of data across classes, with ‘level of interactivity’ as fixed factor in the analysis of covariance, it was found that in all cases where there was a teacher rated as using a substantial amount of higher level interactivity, that teacher achieved a higher gain in attainment during Phase 1 than colleagues using less dialogic interactivity – in some cases, significantly so.
However, this differential in attainment gains was not generally maintained in Phase 2. Using a combination of Phase 1 and Phase 2 data for the same teacher and phase as the fixed factor in the analysis of covariance, it was found that in some cases, the non-ICT using teacher who had achieved highly during Phase 1 appeared to be less effective when using ICT in Phase 2; this could reflect a temporary dip in effectiveness whilst gaining expertise in using new technology. Additionally, there was evidence that some ICT-using teachers in Phase 1 had become more effective in using ICT to support interactive teaching. This could reflect the professional development in pedagogy with ICT gained during Phase 1 and the interim conference.
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