A multiple-case study of three English language teachers’ technology integration experience in Hong Kong classrooms

Abstract

In the context of implementing e-learning in Hong Kong schools, technology integration has become a significant trend of development in the English Language subject. This study explores how the teacher cognition about technology integration influences English language teachers’ practice, and evaluates the emerging contextual factors that hinder or facilitate meaningful and successful technology integration in teaching. The study explores the classroom experiences of three English language teachers in Hong Kong explicitly to understand their teacher cognition and the opportunities and challenges they experienced when bringing technology into their teaching contexts. The research design involved a qualitative multiple-case study investigating the teacher cognitions of the three teachers, in terms of their technology experiences, pedagogical beliefs, knowledge about technology integration and teaching practice. Data collected included semistructured pre-study and post-study interviews, classroom observations, after-lesson reflections, field notes and artefact collection during lesson observations and from WhatsApp chats with each teacher. An enhanced conceptual framework, inspired by Borg’s teacher cognition framework (2006), Mishra & Koehler’s (2006) framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK), Puentedura’s (2006) SAMR model and Lankshear and Knobel’s notion (2006) of ‘mindsets’, was used to guide the study. In the process of analysis, a trajectory of each teacher’s cognition development was constructed through identifying themes holistically from the data. Their knowledge and skills about technology integration in their practice were analysed through evaluating the types of technology use, the level of technology use and the pedagogic purposes of technology use in the three teacher cases. Finally, a crosscase analysis was conducted to compare the similarities and differences of the findings. The key finding was that the mindset shaped by and emerging from English language teacher cognition (ELTC) about technology integration directly influenced the teachers’ practice with technology. The contextual factors facilitating meaningful technology integration were identified as global or globalised teaching and learning experiences with technology, participating in learning communities and the change of professional roles. The contextual factors constraining meaningful technology integration included public exams, a print-based Mindset 1 subject culture, and a packed curriculum. The study concludes with a discussion of the nuanced relationship between global or globalised teaching and learning experiences with technology and mindset development around technology integration, and suggests implications for research into what kinds of experiences from teaching and learning promote a cyberspace mindset (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006), which could be translated into teaching practice.