Teachers' Beliefs and Uses of Technology to Support 21st-century Teaching and Learning

Previous research has established the importance of teachers’ beliefs to classroom practices including teachers’ choices of instructional strategies (Smith & Southerland, 2007; Wilkins, 2008) and assessment methods (National Association of State Boards of Education, 2009), as well as their selection of instructional resources (Speer, 2008) and technology tools (Ertmer, Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Sadik, Sendurur, & Sendurur, 2012). As noted by Fives and Buehl (2012), research on teachers’ beliefs spans nearly 60 years and includes over 700 empirical studies. Yet, despite this large body of work, additional research is needed to explicate the relationship between teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and their uses of digital technologies, specifically those that support 21st-century teaching and learning.