Digital skill mythology and understanding in preservice teachers

Any assumption that PSTs enter their initial teacher education degrees with skills in digital technologies equal to or exceeding their lecturers, or will be able to teach themselves whatever is needed, leaves all levels of education vulnerable to a mythology of practice. Rather than working from assumptions, this chapter focuses on explicit facilitation of PST digital literacy informed by the Digital Skill Development (DSD) framework, itself based on the facets and levels of autonomy of the Research Skill Development (RSD) framework. This chapter uses the DSD framework as a lens to examine PSTs’ understanding of what digital skills encompass. In a dedicated digital technologies unit at Monash University, 190 second year PSTs were encouraged to confront digital skill statistics that question the Digital Native myth, and were surveyed about their own digital competence. Five weeks later, they were asked to explain their understanding of digital skills and after 12 weeks they were surveyed about their digital competence. Findings were used to uncover which digital skill facets PSTs recognised and responded to and which needed more focus in the unit. More broadly, the conclusions will add to our understanding of the implications of explicit digital research skill development for the field of teacher education.