BEYOND HARDWARE: HOW TEACHER ATTITUDES AND SELF-EFFICACY OVERRIDE RESOURCES IN SHAPING ICT AND COMPUTATIONAL THINKING PRACTICES

Abstract

The 21st-century classroom is saturated with technology, yet a persistent “implementation gap” reveals that providing hardware is not enough. Why do some teachers seamlessly integrate digital tools while others struggle, despite equal resources? This large-scale, cross-national study investigates the psychological drivers behind this gap, moving beyond resource-centric
explanations to explore teachers’ attitudes and confidence. Drawing on data from over 48,000 teachers across diverse educational systems in ICILS 2023, we tested a mediation model examining how teachers’ positive views on ICT
and their perceptions of school resources influence classroom practices— both in general ICT use and the more demanding domain of Computational Thinking (CT) instruction.Our findings deliver a clear message: teachers’
internal belief systems are the true catalysts for technology integration. While positive attitudes directly and indirectly predicted greater emphasis on ICT and CT, perceived resource availability showed no significant effect. This confirms that confidence outweighs material provisions. Furthermore, these mechanisms operate differently for male and female teachers, revealing that a one-size-fits-all professional development approach is insufficient. For policymakers and educators, the conclusion is transformative: to build future-ready classrooms, we must invest first in cultivating confident, positively disposed, and psychologically empowered teachers. Sustainable
technology integration is not about hardware; it is about humanware.