Native, addict, innovator: young teachers' digital competence in the post-COVID-19 instructional era
International Journal of Educational Management
ISSN: 0951-354X
Article publication date: 16 October 2023
Issue publication date: 4 December 2023
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to posing challenges, has also created opportunities for greater digital integration than ever. However, the scale and efficacy of digital integration are contingent on the digital competence (DC) of teachers. In the same way, how well teachers learn and teach online may depend on how willing they are to try new ways of digitizing learning or being innovative. This study aimed to ascertain if teachers' digital nativeness, digital addiction and innovative work behavior had an impact on their DC.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a quantitative research method, whereby data were collected from 276 schools, colleges and university teachers. The researchers employed structural equation modeling (SEM) using SmartPLS to analyze the data.
Findings
The results illuminate the literature regarding DC and the predictive capability of teachers' digital nativeness, digital addiction and innovative work behavior, which can contribute to paving the way for digitizing teaching and learning in the post-COVID-19 era.
Research limitations/implications
The study has significant implications for meaningful learner engagement by explaining the importance of teachers' digital competencies and how they could be approached conceptually to better understand the factors associated with teachers' DC. The differences in DC between digital natives and digital emigrants remain one of the limitations that future research may address.
Practical implications
The results have policy level and practical implications for organizations to consider the value of young teachers in the integration of digital resources. It is also critical to encourage teachers' innovative behavior in the digitization of teaching by creating a supportive organizational environment.
Originality/value
The study remains valuable in the post-COVID-19 era, where educational institutes are revisiting the prospect of online learning as a parallel to in-person teaching. The results remain innovative and genuine and have not been explored in previous research, in particular in the post-COVID-19 era. The involvement of teachers from schools, colleges and universities makes the results more general, which all of them can equally benefit from.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The researchers acknowledge the valuable participation of the respondents. This study did not receive any financial support.
Conflict of interest: The researchers report no conflict of interest.
Since acceptance of this article, the following author(s) have updated their affiliations: Nazir Ahmed Jogezai is at the Laboratory for Educational Innovation Research, Higher School of Economics, Institute of Education, National Research University, Moscow, Russia and Fozia Ahmed Baloch is at the Department of Education, Balochistan University of Information Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences (BUITEMS), Quetta, Pakistan.
Citation
Jogezai, N.A. and Baloch, F.A. (2023), "Native, addict, innovator: young teachers' digital competence in the post-COVID-19 instructional era", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 37 No. 6/7, pp. 1382-1400. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-03-2023-0148
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited