Coaching teachers to integrate technology: The effects of technology integration on student performance and critical thinking

Abstract

t. This article presents the results of a mixed-methods study that investigated effects of coachingfifth grade teachers to integrate technology while teaching a science unit. The purpose of the researchwas to capture how technology integration with or without coaching in a science unit effect teachers’technology integration practices and their instruction, and its results of the instruction on studentoutcomes and student critical thinking. The participants were 132 fifth-grade students and four teachersin elementary public school. The study used an experimental research design by having a control andresearch group (68 students were in the teachers’ classrooms that were using technology withoutcoaching intervention, and 64 were in the other teachers’ classrooms, with coaching intervention tointegrate available technologies). Data were collected through classroom observations, tests and semistructured interviews. The results showed that coached teachers integrated technology more frequently,more purposefully and more diversely. Additionally, the results indicated that the teachers who werecoached for technology integration had a positive effect on student performance, and the observance ofstudents critical thinking behaviors were more frequent in the classroom compared to the no-coachinggroup of teachers’ classroom.