Abstract:
The proliferation of ICT in South African basic education has not been associated with effective pedagogical uses
of ICT in classrooms. While there is differential deployment of ICT as cognitive tools of instruction in South
Africa's schools, the effects of educators' ICT self-efficacy on their pedagogical use of technologies is yet to be fully
grasped. This research gap has been attributed to, inter alia, the lack of a detailed profile of ICT self-efficacy
beliefs of educators and its effects on pedagogical uses of ICT by educators. This study employs a crosssectional
survey, adapting a structured questionnaire to investigate the relationship between purposively
selected 163 Gauteng educators' ICT self-efficacy beliefs and their pedagogical use of ICT. An exploratory factor
analysis on pedagogical use of ICT (PUI) revealed three factors of ‘traditional PUI’ and one ‘constructivist PUI’.
Results suggest that ICT self-efficacy had a positive significant but moderate effect on the three traditional PUI and
a positive significant and strong relationship with the constructivist PUI. Furthermore, a linear regression analysis
found ICT self-efficacy to significantly predict all four PUI factors. The study recommends initial educator training
that emphasises exposure of trainee educators to extended periods of hands-on engagement with ICTs in classroom
environments. Furthermore, it recommends continuous ICT integration and the development of practicing
educators with a focus on the “how to” integrate ICT tools as ‘generative’ mind tools. These interventions have
potential to increase educators' ICT self-efficacy in resource constrained contexts. The implication is that educator
training curricula are re-designed with an emphasis on practical lesson planning that includes ICTs as seamless
resources used in the classroom in basic education.
