Using technology for questioning evidence in pre-service teacher education

In recent years there have been more and more calls for the preparation of teachers to be increasingly evidence-informed. The assumption is that evidence-informed teaching practice improves the quality of teaching and subsequently student achievement will improve. Preparation for teaching using technology for student learning is well-established in pre-service teacher education programmes. However, the use of technologies to interrogate evidence by pre-service teachers is less well-researched. The work presented here offers insights as to how using technology can support and enhanced pre-service teachers in developing practices that are evidence-informed. Using a theoretical framework with elements of evidence-use mechanisms and Engeström’s expansive learning cycle, a programme for training pre-service mathematics teachers in one European country was redesigned, with the programme leaning strongly on technology use to query evidence. Using a design-based research approach, this article describes the design iterations, and presents a case study with five in-depth interviews with pre-service teachers on evidence-use. From these cases, it is concluded that the use of technology can aid and support evidence-use. The paper concludes by presenting a new redesign of the programme with the use of generative AI, pointing towards future ways in which technology can support the development of teachers’ evidence-use.