Abstracts - Earli

primary and secondary teachers aged 30-53, 60% females. ICT-CI and CPI were administered atthe end of the 120-hour course. This paper discusses personality features that may be associatedwith success or failure to acquire ICT skills on a level sufficient for educational use. Strongcorrelation between social skills and success in ICT use suggest that pedagogical strategies in ICTuse may be affected by targeting both the professional and personal self of teachers. An adaptivelearning environment, and mentoring methods designed to suit not only the initial level oftechnological skills but also the mindset of teachers may enhance e-teaching readiness. (Studyrelated to work of the Research Group on the Development of Competencies, Hungarian Academyof Sciences - University of Szeged.)“It’s all in your head!”:Pre-service teachers and the confounding of ethnic minority and lowsocioeconomic statusRevathy Kumar, University of Toledo, USAThis study draws upon Social Identity theory to hypothesize that when White middle-class, preserviceteachers respond to survey items about beliefs regarding ethnic minority or lowsocioeconomic status (SES) students, values associated with their own identity as White andmiddle-class become salient. Consequently, pre-service teachers may fail to distinguish betweenthe two social identities and may characterize ethnic minority and low SES students as possessingsimilar attributes. Quantitative methods (exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis) andqualitative interviews are employed to examine the reliability consistency and factorial andconstruct validities of the items in two scales measuring pre-service teachers’ beliefs regardingethnic minority and low SES students. Implications regarding rigor in research and curriculumdevelopment for pre-service teachers are discussed.The challenge of self-directed learning in a teacher education programme.Francis Lopez-Real, The University of Hong Kong, Hong KongTammy Kwan, The University of Hong Kong, Hong KongMing-Fai Pang, The University of Hong Kong, Hong KongIn the 2004-2005 academic year, the PGDE programme at the University of Hong Kongintroduced a significant new element into its course, namely a Self-Directed Learning (SDL)component. This was part of a general re-structuring of the programme and was intended to helpstudents effectively integrate the theoretical and field experience components of the course and,through the process of self-directed learning, to empower them to become autonomous, criticallyreflective professionals. Two-hour sessions were regularly time-tabled throughout the year duringwhich groups of students had complete control over what their learning objectives would be foreach session and how they would organize the session. In other words, they were driving their ownlearning agenda. However, self-directed learning does not necessarily imply unsupported learning,and various support mechanisms (such as an SDL Guidebook) and monitoring processes were alsoput in place. This paper reports on the first stages of an action research project focusing on thisinnovation. It describes how this new component was implemented, and analyses the experiencesof the students, the outcomes in terms of benefits and difficulties, and the implications for theongoing development of SDL within the programme. Data were collected from questionnairescompleted by all student teachers, video recordings of a number of different groups, and structuredgroup interviews.– 92 –