Journal of Interactive Online Learning Volume 3, Number 4 Spring 2005

www.ncolr.org ISSN:1541-4914

Using Blackboard in an Educational Psychology Course to Increase Pre-

service Teachers’ Skills and Confidence in Technology Integration

Yuzhu Teng
The College of Saint Rose

James Allen
The College of Saint Rose

Abstract

An important education issue that needs to be addressed in teacher education is the

gap between the continuing and increasing technology demands placed on new teachers
entering K-12 classrooms and the training that they receive during their college years. There
is evidence that not only are new teachers lacking the technological skills, they also lack the
confidence needed to motivate them to expand their technological abilities. There is concern
that many school of education faculty are not effectively modeling the use of technology to
pre-service teachers in education courses. This paper investigates how the incorporation of
the Blackboard Learning System, with its expanded communication and hands-on features,
helps pre-service teachers to gain confidence in integrating technology into their future
teaching. In addition, it documented how students and professors think the use of a course
management system helps students’ learning. It will also provide guidance for the effective
use of a web-enhanced learning system.

Introduction

An important education issue that needs to be addressed is the continuing and

increasing technology demands placed on new teachers entering K-12 classrooms. Many
school district administrators expect that the new teachers exiting teacher-education
programs have the skills to easily integrate technology into their lessons to improve the
learning of the K-12 students in their schools. However, there is evidence that not only are
new teachers lacking the technological skills, they also lack the confidence needed to
motivate them to expand their technological abilities.
Concurrently, there is concern that many school of education faculty are not
effectively modeling the use of technology to pre-service teachers in education courses. One
form of technology that is available and is expanding on college campuses is the use of Web-
based environments such as “Blackboard” and “Web-CT” which allow students access to
course materials, lecture notes, assignments, and web site links. These course management
systems also allow college faculty and pre-service teachers to interact within education
courses via technology. In particular, the “Communication” sections of these Web-based
environments are often one of the more frequently used components.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the connection between pre-service
teachers’ confidence in integrating technology into their teaching and the use of Blackboard,
a web-based learning environment. Another purpose of the study is to investigate how the
“hands on” nature of using technology via Blackboard affects pre-service teachers’
confidence in using technology to create technology-based lessons.

Literature Review

Researchers and practitioners have reported that effective technology integration in

teaching motivates students’ interest in learning, increases students’ high level learning, such
as problem-solving and complex reasoning skills, and promotes significant students’ learning
gains (Dwyer, 1994; Kimble, 1997; Lazarowitz, 2002; Lingnar, Hoppe, & Mannhaupt, 2003;
Salpeter, 1998; Wheeler, Waite, & Bromfield, 2002; Wishart & Blease, 1999).
However, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) (1999) has reported
that only 20% of teachers believe they are prepared to integrate technology into their
classroom instructional practices. In 2000, NCES reported that 50% of the teachers who had
computers or the Internet in their classrooms reported using them for some type of classroom
instructional practices. However, a majority of these teachers used them mostly for word
processing or spreadsheet applications. Only one-third of the teachers felt they were well
prepared to use computers and the Internet. Of these teachers, 93% reported that this was due
to their independent learning rather than through formal college instruction in how to
effectively integrate technology into their teaching.
Albee (2003) in her study investigated teachers’ technology skills and the expectation
of administrators at schools for new teachers to have technology skills. She found a
discrepancy between what the administrators expected from the pre-service teachers and the
pre-service teachers’ actual technology skills. She also found that college faculty integration
of technology directly impacts student teachers’ use of technology and their confidence of
technology integration in their instruction. Hill and Somers (1996) and Queitzsch (1997)
contend that preparation of pre-service teachers to use and integrate technology in their
future classrooms needs to be emphasized. Colleges of education should provide
opportunities for pre-service teachers to observe the modeling of effective uses of technology
by faculty and to use this technology in a supportive environment.
In addition, Martin and Briggs (1986) believed that computer confidence is highly
correlated with computer anxiety and attitudes toward computers. Pre-service teachers’
confidence levels were increased by being exposed to the technologies while learning
teaching practices in their method courses and seeing the technologies modeled by the
faculty (Bohlin & Hunt, 1995; Hill & Somer, 1996; Pope, Hare, & Howard, 2002). Ayersman
(1996) reported computer anxiety is prevalent among pre-service and practicing teachers and
many suffer at substantially high levels. Bradley and Russell (1997) found that computer
anxiety was highly and negatively correlated with self-rated computer competence. Prior
computer learning experience was reported to be important and independent determinants of
both computer anxiety and computer competence.
Gunter (2001) reported that students had significantly less anxiety after completion of
a redesigned Web enhanced course which provides continuous technology modeling, and an
authentic learning environment. Such courses are often supported by course-management
software, such as Blackboard and Web-CT. Gunter found that students entered institutions of
higher learning with lack of proper computer, information and integration skills. However,
she claimed that higher education faculty who use a variety of innovative teaching and
learning strategies that they effectively model can promote the use of technology best by

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integrating it into their own instruction. Pre-service teachers’ anxiety was greatly reduced
and they were encouraged and inspired to use technology in their future classrooms.
These research studies are consistent with constructivist principles of learning that
hold that meaningful learning occurs in the active exchange of information and ideas by
individuals. As Mayer (2003) suggests, learning should be meaningful rather than rote,
instruction should be student-centered rather than curriculum-centered, assessment should be
focused on transfer of learning in addition to retention of knowledge, and the approach to
using educational technology should be learner-centered rather than technology-centered.
Thus, technology-based instructional features that increase dialogue and communication
among students, as well as between students and teachers, should increase pre-service
teachers’ depth of knowledge and their ability to transfer that knowledge into their future
teaching experiences.
Online discussions can offer many benefits to students. Asynchronous, computer-
mediated, many-to-many communication, online class discussions are claimed to be able to
offer students opportunities that no other media can (Harasim, 1987). Research studies
reported that online class discussion affords students a democratic environment (Hiltz, 1994).
No one student or instructor can dominate a discussion. Less assertive or shy students feel
less intimidated in participation of the discussion and feel more comfortable in expressing
their opinions online (Kamhi-Stein, 2000; Warschauer, 1997; Yi & Majima, 1993). Many
students reported that they had more communications with their instructors and peers in
online classes than in traditional, face-to-face class discussions (Schutte, 1996; Turgeon,
Biase, & Miller, 2000).
At the same time, online discussion with its asynchronous feature provides students
with the opportunity to reflect on their peers’ contributions while creating their own, and on
their own writing before posting it. Therefore it is argued that online discussion tends to
create certain mindfulness and a culture of reflection (Harasim, 1990; Hiltz, 1994). Actually,
Garrison (2002), Jonassen, Davidson, Collins, Campbell, & Haag (1995), and Wells (1992)
argue for the unique capability of asynchronous online discussion to support both reflection
and collaboration. It has the potential to significantly enhance the intellectual quality of
learning environments and outcomes. As Woolfolk (2004) and Zeichner & Liston (1996)
point out, one of the roles of teacher education programs should be to prepare pre-service
teachers to be reflective-practitioners, that is, to continually reflect on how they teach to
improve their instruction so that students in their classes may learn more effectively. Thus,
online discussions should contribute to this effort by increasing pre-service teachers’
opportunities to get feedback from their peers and course instructors about their ideas and use
of technology.
Some recent studies regarding pre-service teacher education reported that online
discussion expanded and enhanced class discussions and built an intellectual, collaborative
network (Bonk, Daytner, Daytner, Dennen, & Malikowski, 2001; Mayer, 2002; Slavit, 2002).
Slavit (2002) in his study investigating an online communication package reported that
students perceived that asynchronous online discussion extended class discussion. The online
discussion area provided them opportunities to develop their understanding of the course
related issues. While students were able to initiated and react to various ideas, assertions, and
questions, the discussion stayed more focused with the instructors’ facilitation. Slavit
concluded that electronic discussions were beneficial to the reflective and communicative
processes of pre-service teachers. They extended and enhanced classroom discussions. Mayer

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(2002) also reported the benefits of online discussion for pre-service teachers, such as linking
them with colleagues and friends for personal and professional support, an avenue for them
seeking advice and ideas on their teaching practicum, and an effective and time efficient way
of communicating. At the same time, she also pointed out the challenges for teachers,
students and the universities.
Indeed, Bonk et al. (2001) also found that in online discussion students’ contributions
tend to be more thoughtful. As an extension of classroom discussion, instructors can provide
efficient and organized advice while learning the current common problems and issues in K-
12 classrooms. Through online discussion, students get access to multiple perspectives on
different issues, something not in the textbook or lecture. In addition, students’ learning was
enhanced when pedagogical and technological aspects of online discussion were combined.
Again, from a constructivist perspective, the sharing of multiple perspectives should increase
the depth of understanding that pre-service teachers develop regarding effective instruction.
In addition, confidence of technology integration in teaching is still a central issue in
pre-service teacher education. School administrators are expecting more technology skills
from new teachers. They have concerns regarding the technology skills of both pre-service
teachers and in-service teachers. While the above mentioned studies have found that online
discussions are a helpful tool during pre-service teachers’ preparation for teaching, this
current study explores whether the integration of a web-based course management system
benefits students in terms of increasing their self-reported computer skills. It also looks at
how the use of technology in theory-based educational psychology classes assists in
sustaining pre-service teachers’ confidence in integrating technology in teaching, and their
better understanding of educational principles.

Research Questions

(1) Is there a difference in the course-exit levels of students’ self-reported computer skills
and confidence in integrating technology into their teaching compared with that of their
perception at the beginning of the course?
(2) Do students find that the “hands on” nature of using technology via Blackboard affects
their computer skills and confidence in using technology to create technology-based lessons?
(3) What Blackboard activities do students report help build their computer skills, their
confidence of technology integration in teaching, and their understanding of educational
psychology principles?
(4) How does use of Blackboard help students with their understanding of Educational
Psychology principles?

Methodology

Treatment

The courses used in this study integrate technology skills development in the context
of a survey course in educational psychology. Since there is not a course designated to
systematically introduce technology integration in education for the teacher preparation
program, this is a course designed to systematically integrate Educational Psychology
theories and technology use in education. An extensive use of Blackboard is adopted with all

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students required to engage with various features of the system for discussions of educational
psychology topics, to turn in assignments, and to access course materials. Blackboard is a
web-based course management system, which offers instructors and students several
opportunities that face-to-face class instruction does not. Discussions between instructors and
students and among students can be extended outside of classrooms through the Discussion
Board. Students can not only discuss educational psychology topics, problem-based teaching
cases, and technology assignments in class, but also before and after classes. Students have
equal opportunity to participate, especially for those who are shy or less vocal in class. In
addition, students have time to reflect on their own ideas and their classmates’ postings
before they post their thoughts. These opportunities are intended to enhance students’
learning (Garrison, 2002; Harasim, 1990). Students have 24/7 access to course notes and
resources through online course materials. Instructors can also post assignments to the
website instead of delivering them in class so that they have more class time for class
activities. The External Links feature of Blackboard provides students more references for
unit related materials. In addition, the instructors model for the students how they use the
information literacy tools while trying to improve students’ literacy skills. On one hand
students can observe how instructors utilize multimedia technology in their teaching by using
Blackboard. At the same time students themselves have to be able to navigate through the
course web site in order to get the needed course material, turn in course assignments, and
participate in course discussions. Using technology is part of the course, not just a set of
isolated technology assignments. Through maximum exposure to and regular use of basic
computer skills, students get more familiar with computer technology, and therefore their
anxiety should be reduced (Gunter, 2001). While discussing educational psychology theories
through Blackboard, students can integrate these theories into their ideas of how and why
they might use technology in their future teaching through various assignments.

Subjects

The subjects were students enrolled in four sections of a 4-credit undergraduate

course entitled “Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology.” 90% of the students
were female students. 87% were 18-22 years old, a traditional group of college students. 84%
were juniors. 53% were elementary education majors. Others majors included secondary
education, communication disorders, art education, music education, and special education.
Most of these students are currently taking methods courses in preparation for student-
teaching the following year.

Instruments

Students were given a pre-course and post-course survey measuring their

confidence, as well as their proficiency in their ability to use and integrate technology in their
teaching. The survey was adapted from Ertmer, Conklin, Lewandowski, Osika, Selo, and
Wignall (2003). The pre-survey contains two parts to query both students’ perceptions of
their computer skills and their confidence of technology integration in teaching, with the
post-survey containing a third part asking students’ perceptions of whether Blackboard
activities help to develop their computer skills and confidence of technology integration in
teaching. Furthermore this part of the survey poses the questions as to which Blackboard

5
activities students consider help them to develop their computer skills, technology integration
confidence and knowledge of educational psychology principles.
Changes in students’ confidence of technology integration were determined by using
repeated-measures ANOVA. To answer question 2 and 3, we conducted a frequency analysis
to report the students’ perceptions about whether and which Blackboard activities help build
their computer skills, their technology integration confidence and understanding of
psychology principles.
Interviews with instructors and students were conducted at the end of the semester to
triangulate the quantitative data and provided explanations as to how students and professors
think about the use of Blackboard in helping students learn.

Preliminary Findings

Separate repeated-measures ANOVAs were conducted with the factor being time -
before and after the course and the dependent variable being students’ computer skills and
confidence scores. The means and standard deviations for computer skills and confidence
scores are presented in Tables 1 & 2. The results for the ANOVA indicated a significant
difference of students’ computer skills, as well as their confidence of technology integration,
before and after the course.

Table 1
Computer Skills [Wilks’ ٨ = .83, F (1, 36) =7.64, p=.009, partial η2 =.18]

Survey M SD

Pre-course 3.89 1.02

Post-course 4.38 1.06

Table 2
Confidence of Technology Integration [Wilks’ ٨ = .60, F (1, 32) =21.18, p=.000,
partial η2 =.40]

Survey M SD

Pre-course 4.21 .76

Post-course 4.87 .49

Further examinations on changes of students specific computer skills indicate that

students’ skills of using word processing, power point, e-mail, listserv, educational software,
world wide web/ internet to both locate and present information, and Blackboard are reported
significantly different before and after the course. The only insignificant value is the use of

6
spreadsheets. This is because the course hasn’t covered this topic and it was designed this
way since the instructors believe that currently there are many ready-to-use software for
teachers (e.g., spreadsheet grading software).
Overall students reported that Blackboard helps to develop both their computer skills
and their confidence of technology integration in teaching. However, fewer students reported
increase of skills and confidence with using spreadsheets, listservs and educational software.
Again this may be due to the design of the course, and instructors may not cover the
introduction of these parts of technology. Tables 3 and 4 report the percentage of students’
perceiving the benefits of using Blackboard in developing their computer skills and
confidence of technology integration.

Table 3
Percentage that Students Agree Blackboard Helps to Develop Their Skills of Using
Computers

Word PowerPoint E-mail WWW/Internet Course

Processing Management
System
Percentage 92 79 90 90 87

Table 4
Percentage that Students Agree Blackboard Helps to Develop Their Confidence of
Integrating Computer Technology in Teaching

Word PowerPoint E-mail WWW/Internet Course

Processing Management
System
Percentage 79 84 76 79 69

All students agreed that Blackboard helped them with their understanding of
educational psychology principles: 47% of the students “strongly agreed”; 40% “agreed”,
and 11% “slightly agreed” (2% missing values).
Further examination of Blackboard components that students reported agreement as
having beneficial use included Discussion, Lecture Notes, PowerPoint presentations,
technology assignments, case studies, and external web site links. These all had high
percentage rates of beneficial use with the lowest having a 53% agreement rate, and the
highest having a 92% agreement rate.
Results of the interviews support the quantitative analysis. Generally both teachers
and students being interviewed have reported definitely positive effect for use of Blackboard
in the course. In all the four classes investigated they use most of the features of the
Blackboard system. The most commonly used features are Course Content areas such as
Course Documents (for lecture notes, PowerPoint presentations), Assignments (for

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technology assignments, case studies), External Links (for more resources or assignments),
and other features like Discussion Board, Gradebook, E-mail, and Announcements.
Students reported that they like the feature of Gradebook because they can find out
where they are in the class right after the teacher posts the grades, and where they need to
improve. However, the examination of the course statistics showed some different results.
The most commonly visited area of the course site is Discussion Board which comprise
almost half of visits of the course site, ranging from 42% -50% among the four classes
examined. Other percentage of the course site visits are 17%-20% for Course Content, 13%-
18% for Announcements, 5%-6% for Student Grade, 5% for E-mail. (The total is not 100%
since access that is lower than 5% is not reported here.) This findings show that even though
students reported that they like Gradebook very much, Discussion Board is actually the area
they accessed most.
Interviews with students revealed that the use of Discussion Board helps them
understand Educational Psychology principles better because it provides them with more
communications among themselves and communications with professors. They have more
discussion time because the discussions can be carried over outside of class time. Students
reported that they also do follow-up readings and research depending on the topics of the
discussions. Students considered that Discussion Board provided them more time to “think
about the questions, and structure their thoughts”. Shy students became more open and
reflective when participating in discussions with the Discussion Board. One of the professors
said “I was amazed at those quality postings posted by students who are shy at our class
meetings.”
Students indicated that with the integration of Blackboard in this Educational
Psychology course they observed how their professors use technology in class and how this
practice fit with the Educational Psychology principles they were learning. “I like the way
my professors used Blackboard. He did not use it just for technology’s sake or just posted
stuff there. Instead he modeled how to integrate technology in teaching.” “Yes, we used
Blackboard and we did what is related to what we learned.” “It’s not like Blackboard stuff
has nothing to do with what we learned.”
Students considered their current use of Blackboard as effective. However they hope
computers do not replace their face-to-face meetings with professors because they do not
think that the face-to-face meeting experiences should/can be replaced. Professors realized
that the effective use of Discussion Board requires more time from both professors and
students. The active role of professors along with interesting discussion topics would
generate effective use of Discussion Board and sustain the discussions.
Depending on professors’ teaching styles, they used Blackboard slightly differently.
First of all, some professors used Discussion Board as a diagnostic and scaffolding tool,
others used it for students to relate a personal link with topics covered in face-to-face class
meetings. Both students and professors used it as scaffoldings to bring interesting questions
to class. “I used Discussion Board as a snap shot, a reminder of where they (students) are,
what questions they have”. “I asked them to post questions they don’t know but they want to
know, the most intriguing and puzzling questions”. Secondly, some professors required
students to participate in online discussions, others didn’t. However, even when using the
discussion board as a requirement, professors do not count the postings; instead they
emphasize the quality of students’ postings. Thirdly, some professors used External Links as
a repertoire of external resources found on the Internet, while others used it as assigned links

8
(readings) as well. Professors also liked the feature that they can customize the course site. “I
changed the name of the button in order to personalize my course so that it becomes a special
place for my students and myself.”
Professors reported using Blackboard to model reflective thinking. “Blackboard can
be used as a reflection of your course as to what you have been doing and where you are
going, or a library for your course.” At the same time professors and students reported more
time put into the course by using Blackboard, but they all agree that it’s worthwhile.

Conclusion

This study details that the exposure of students in web-based course environments,
and exchanging ideas electronically, helps to improve their self-reported computer skills and
their confidence in using technology and integrating technology in their future teaching. With
greater levels of confidence, it is anticipated that pre-service teachers will be more actively
engaged in developing the technology skills that the school districts need in which they will
teach in the future. This study also documents students’ report in the benefits of using
Blackboard in their understanding of educational psychology principles. It will serve as a
guide on how professors may design web-enhanced courses with a course management
system so that students can benefit academically and professors can teach effectively in such
an environment. It is suggested that professors should design learner-centered instead of
technology-centered courses so that technology is used in an effective and reflective way.

9
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