This NFER report found that prior to schools around the world closing because of COVID-19, 82.5 per cent of pupils in England lacked a teacher who had received professional development in incorporating technology into maths instruction.
The analysis finds that at just 17.5 per cent, teachers in England were well below the international average of 35 per cent for having received professional development of incorporating technology into maths lessons.
This absence of training meant that England’s primary pupils were more likely to be receiving remote learning provision from a teacher who had had no formal CPD in incorporating technology into maths teaching, which could compound the issue of potential learning loss. Such training could have helped a more effective transition to online learning during the pandemic.
The influence of digital familiarity in the classroom and teacher professional development in technology on pupil performance in maths or science in normal times is not straightforward. However, they do provide a useful indication of how well countries were positioned to engage with a rapid and unexpected shift to remote learning due to COVID-19.
Key Findings:
- Before the pandemic, the variation in availability of computers for Year 5pupils across countries was considerable, with an international average below 50 per cent for both maths and science lessons. Access for pupils in England was below this average, whereas among high-performing comparator countries it was 14 percentage points higher.
- Higher availability of computers across high-performing countries did not necessarily translate to more frequent use of computers in the classroom. Like other high-performing countries, teachers and pupils in England were relatively infrequent users of computers in the classroom. The percentage of pupils using computers at least once a week for schoolwork in England was 12 percentage points lower than the international average in science and three percentage points lower in maths.
- Year 5 pupils in more affluent schools in England were more likely to have access to computers and exposure to their use in learning. For example, they were 34 percentage points more likely to have had computers available for science lessons and 57 percentage points more likely to have had teachers who used computers to support learning in maths lessons at least once per week, compared with pupils from more disadvantaged schools.
- Internationally, only a third of pupils had teachers who participated in professional development in integrating technology into maths instructions in the two years prior to the survey. England was below this average, where only 17.5per cent of pupils had teachers who had participated in this training.
- The socioeconomic gap observed in computer access and use in England is not reflected in teacher training. A similar percentage of pupils from more affluent and more disadvantaged schools in England had teachers who had previously received professional development in integrating technology into maths instruction.
- Globally, 72 per cent of Year 5 pupils had teachers who reported needing further training in technology for maths instruction. This proportion was higher than for other types of professional development related to maths content, pedagogy, curriculum and assessment.
- Although the number of days of mandatory school closures in England was below the median for TIMSS-participating countries, teachers received relatively less professional development in technology incorporation into instruction than other countries with a similar length of school closures, such as Singapore, Lithuania and Northern Ireland.