Teachers’ self-efficacy, self-beliefs and self-perceptions of students’ use of educational technology and applications before and after the Covid-19 lockdown in New Zealand.

Teacher self-efficacy can be increased through a range of teaching strategies. These teaching strategies include using open ended questions with students and collaborating with other educators. These strategies have the ability to increase student achievement and engagement, as teachers with high self-efficacy engage more with their students and aim to increase their interest in their schooling. This is also the case for teachers’ and students’ use of educational technology and applications. If teachers have high self-efficacy with the use of technology in the classroom, which indicates that they know how to use technology successfully, then this can help engage their students with technology also. In turn, teacher self-efficacy can be increased by students who feel confident with the use of technology. Two other constructs which affect whether educators’ use of educational technology is successful are self-beliefs and self-perceptions. Furthermore, teachers need positive beliefs and perceptions of technology use for educational purposes in order for the use of them to be successful. It is important to acknowledge these constructs as important determinants of technology usage in the classroom. Barriers to obtaining and maintaining positive beliefs and perceptions involve a lack of technology training in professional development programmes, lack of importance put on technology usage from schools, and teachers’ individual experiences with technology in their personal lives. The goal of this research is to examine whether students’ intense use of educational applications and technology during the Covid-19 lockdown affected teachers’ self-efficacy, self-beliefs and self-perceptions. Results identified that although there was slight differences in the pre and post means, students’ use did not significantly affect their teacher’s self- efficacy, self-beliefs or self-perceptions. Furthermore, they did not significantly increase or decrease. This identifies that the use of technology before the lockdown did not affect these constructs in comparison to how teachers felt about technology after the lockdown