Role of Educational Qualification and Ownership of Personal Computer on Pre-service Teacher's Digital Empowerment

Abstract

The present study studied the role of Educational Qualification and Ownership of Personal Computer on Pre-Service Teachers’ Digital Empowerment. The descriptive research method was used. The sample included 611 fourth-semester Pre-Service Teachers pursuing 2-year Bachelor of Education program in the Colleges of Teacher Education affiliated with Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh. It consisted of 211 Males and 400 Females, and 267 Postgraduates and 344 Undergraduates. Data was collected using ‘The Student Teachers’ Digital Empowerment Scale (STDES)’ based on the 5-point Likert Scale developed and standardized by the researcher. The scale consisted of 51 items under 4 dimensions viz. a) Technological Competence (TC); b) Technical Access (TA); c) Digital Collaboration & Communication (DC); and d) Digital Security & Ethical Usage of Technological Resources (DE). Reliability was established through Internal Consistency with Cronbach’s Alpha value of µ= 0.867 and Spearman-Brown Coefficient value of 0.866 indicating the scale has good internal consistency. Validity was established through content validity by eight experts’ opinions and judgements and construct validity using dimension-wise item-total correlation and inter-dimension correlation method. The findings indicated a significant mean difference at .05 level of significance in pre-service teachers’ digital empowerment with their educational qualifications in favour of Postgraduates and a significant mean difference at .01 level of significance in pre-service teachers’ digital empowerment with their ownership of personal computers/laptops in favour of those who own their personal computers/laptops.