Technology in Teacher Education - Nevada: Project TITE-N
Student Technology Integration Consultants: STICs
PT3 External Evaluation Report

By Rhonda Christensen and Gerald Knezek
Institute for the Integration of Technology into Teaching and Learning (IITTL)
University of North Texas
August 2004

The goal of Project TITE-N is to increase the proficiency of pre-service teachers in applying modern technology to K-12 instruction. The University of Nevada Reno (UNR) is the Lead Organization for TITE-N. The Institute for the Integration of Technology into Teaching and Learning at the University of North Texas is the external evaluator.

Introduction

Baseline data were gathered online from the participating STICS in February 2004. Follow-up data were gathered from the STICS prior to their Summer Institute on May 17, 2004, and end of year (post test) data were gathered in August 2004. Sixteen STICS submitted data in February, 19 submitted data in May and 16 submitted data in August 2004. Analysis was done comparing February to May as well as May to August, but the analysis included in this report is for February to August due to the nature of the project and when the institute training occurred. During the summer institute these participants learned a wide variety of technology skills and strategies for the educational uses of technology in the classroom. Analysis of the data was done with paired as well as non-paired data. This report is based on the results from the 12 pairs of complete data from February to August 2004.

The following surveys were administered to each preservice teacher:

Demographics
Stages of Adoption of Technology (Stages)
CBAM Level of Use of Technology (CBAM-LoU)
Technology Proficiency Self Assessment (TPSA)
Apple Classroom of Tomorrow (ACOT)- modified
General Preparation in Technology for Prospective Teachers (GP3)
Handheld Computer Survey

Stages of Adoption (Christensen, 1997) and the TAC (Knezek & Christensen, 1996) were developed by the authors of this document, while CBAM-LoU was adapted by Griffin and Christensen (1999) from the work of Hall, Loucks, Rutherford, and Newlove (1975). TPSA was created by Ropp (1999). ACOT was developed by researchers at Apple Computer Inc. (Dwyer, 1994). The Handheld Survey instrument was adapted from a 30-item Palm Handheld Computer Skills Survey (HPRTEC, 2003).

Subjects

Nineteen StudentTechnology Integration Consultants (STICs) were selected to participate in the first year of the TITE-N PT3 project. The selection process included interviews and the selection criteria required successful progression in the teacher education program.

Demographics

The demographics will be reported on the February collection of data. Of the 16 participants with complete data, there were two males and 14 females. Each of the participants reported having access to a computer at home (each received a laptop computer for participating in the project). However there were three (81.3%) participants who did not have Internet access at home. The average age for this group was 31.12 with a range of 20 to 49 years of age and a modal age of 20.

Most of the STICs reported working on their first degree (62.5%) but a few already had advanced degrees and were perhaps coming back to become certified teachers (Table 1).

Table 1
*What is you highest degree received?*
	Frequency	Percent
High School	10	62.5
BA/BS	2	12.5
MA/MS	1	6.3
Other	3	18.8
Total	16	100.0

When asked how many hours they currently use a computer at home, the majority responded that they use it 8-15 hours per week. That averages more than an hour per day and could easily be up to two hours per day for most days.

When asked how often they thought K-12 students used computers for learning in the classroom, most STICs estimated that they occasionally use computers in the classroom. Table 2 shows the distribution of what the STICs believe to be true in the K-12 classroom. Table 3 shows data from 228 Nevada teachers from Spring 2003 answering the question of how often their students use computers for learning activities in school. The largest percentage for those teachers is also occasionally. However a larger percentage of classroom teachers (64%) marked weekly or daily use as opposed to the small percentage of STICs (25%) who think K-12 students use technology weekly or daily.

Table 2
*How frequently do you think K-12 students use computers for learning activities in school?*
	Frequency	Percent
Never	0
Occasionally	12	75.0
Weekly	3	18.8
Daily	1	16.3
Total	16	100.0

Table 3
*Nevada Teachers Spring 2003: " How frequently do your students use computers for learning activities in school?"*
	Frequency	Percent
Never	19	8.3
Occasionally	85	37.1
Weekly	46	20.1
Daily	78	34.1
Total	228	100.0

Technology Integration Measures

As shown in Table 4 and displayed in Figure 1, one of the three technology integration measures for the STICs had a significantly higher gain from February to August of 2004. Stages of Adoption of Technology showed significant gain (p = .03). However, the trend was for gains on all of these technology integration measures, and, since Stages is the most reliable of the three, we deem this result an indication of positive impact.

This is a one-tail test since STICs are hypothesized to grow rather than simply change.

Table 4
Three Pre-Post Paired Indicators for Technology Integration
Indicator	Survey Date	N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Sig (2/1 tail)
CBAM Levels of Use	Feb 04	12	4.17	1.70	2T=.280
	Aug 04	12	4.92	1.62	1T=.14
ACOT	Feb 04	12	3.08	1.44	2T=.215
	Aug 04	12	3.67	.65	1T=.11
Stages of Adoption of Technology	Feb 04	12	4.42	1.24	2T=.059
	Aug 04	12	5.25	.75	1T=.03

Note: 1T=one tailed; 2T=two tailed

Figure1. Three pre-post measures of technology integration for the UNR STICs.

The Technology Proficiency Self Assessment (TPSA) is a skills-based competency instrument. It has twenty items that comprise four scales: Email, World Wide Web, Integrated Applications and Teaching with Technology. Educators self-rate themselves on their perceived confidence in each of these areas. Table 5 contains the mean scores for each of the four scales. These means are depicted in Figure 2. Individual items may be useful for targeting weaker areas. As shown in Table 9, the STICs gained significantly (p < .05) in three of the four areas measured on the TPSA. These were: WWW skills, Integrated applications, and Teaching with Technology.

Table 5
Pre-Post Gains in Technology Proficiency (Paired) for UNR STICs
Indicator	Survey Date	N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Sig
TPEMAIL	Feb 04	12	4.78	.22	.583
	Aug 04	12	4.83	.22	1T=.29
TPWWW	Feb 04	12	4.42	.47	.059
	Aug 04	12	4.73	.29	1T=.03
TP - Integrated Applications	Feb 04	12	4.15	.73	.045
	Aug 04	12	4.65	.35	1T=.03
TP - Teaching with Technology	Feb 04	12	4.07	.57	.065
	Aug 04	12	4.50	.62	1T=.04

Figure 2. Pre and post technology proficiency measures for UNT STICs.

The General Preparation in Technology for Prospective Teachers (GP3) survey was tested for internal consistency reliability on a similar sample of preservice students and resulted in an internal consistency reliability for the entire 17-item scale of .93 (Knezek, Christensen, Morales, & Overall, 2003). The GP3 is used to measure characteristics of a prospective teacher who has completed the general preparation component of his/her program. The GP3 was administered in February and again in August 2004. As shown in Table 6 there are significant differences (p<.05) on four of the 17 General Preparation indicators. These four items are depicted in Figure 3.

Table 6
Paired Pre-Post Means Standard Deviations for and General Preparation in Technology Indicators
(partial list)
Indicator	Survey Date	N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Sig
GP6 - I can collaborate in constructing technology enhanced models, preparing publications, and producing other creative works using productivity tools.	Feb 2004 Aug 2004	12 12	3.92 4.67	.99 .49	.029
GP7 - I can use tehnology to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.	Feb 2004 Aug 2004	12 12	4.42 4.83	.52 .39	.036
GP10 - I have observed adn experienced the use of technology in my major field of study.	Feb 2004 Aug 2004	12 12	3.50 4.33	1.09 .78	.042
GP12 - I can evalluate adn select new information resources and technological innovations based on their appropriateness to specific tasks	Feb 2004 Aug 2004	12 12	3.58 4.42	.90 .67	.017

Figure 3. Pre and post changes for the General Proficiency technology measures.

The Handheld Computer Survey was designed to measure the skills related to using the handheld for personal productivity. Each item was rated on a 4 point scale: 1 = Unable 2 = Adequate 3 = Familiar 4 = Fluent. Between the February administration of the survey and the August administration the STICs received their Palm handheld computers along with a one-day seminar on how to get started using them. They learned how to sync, charge, beam and use Graffiti (the special input alphabet for Palm). As is shown Figure 4, pre-post changes reflect the training that was received between administrations of the survey. For example, the means for Palm items 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10 showed statistically significant gains (p<.05).

Figure 4. Pre-post gains for the handheld computer survey.

Conclusions

It appears the UNR STICs are gaining in the areas that have been included in their PT3-project curriculum. They exhibited significant gains on four of the 17 General Preparation (GP3) indicators that corresponded to areas of focus in their training. They showed significant gains in the most reliable measure of technology integration (Stages of Adoption of Technology) and similar trends in all integration measures. They produced significant skill gains in three of the four Technology Proficiency Self Assessment areas (WWW, Integrated Applications, and Teaching with Technology)-measures based on ISTE/NCATE standards . Their technology integration skills and confidence in general are much higher than where they began. An important element in this growth has undoubtedly been the tools they have received from the project. These created the opportunity to practice the use of the tools in environments like those in with which they will someday be expected to teach.