Attitude to Authority and Digital Competences of Bulgarian Primary Teachers

Abstract

The thesis of this study is based on the assumption that the authority of the teacher manifests as a specific status or professional role and should be internalized in his overall professional profile. The teacher's role-playing authority is defined “a formal authority” and is strongly influenced by the requirements of the educational environment and the specific professional competences of the teacher. The attitude of the teachers towards they own authority, which implements the set of professional roles and competences, is a prerequisite for the formation and manifestation of an adequate professional model, which directly influences the quality and culture of the educational environment. To explaining of the nature of the social manifestation and experience of the teacher's own authority in terms of his status-role model are used the concept of liberalism conservatism. The research is performed with two scales, which are separately developed sets of statements. The first scale – „Attitude to Authority” – is an adapted and integrative version of the established standardized „Attitude to Authority Scale“ (Ray, 1971) and GAIAS (Rigby, 1982). The second scale, “Digital Competence”, was developed as an integrative scale to explore teachers' attitudes towards digitalization of education and to study specific skills involved in digital competence. Research involve 202 Bulgarian Primary teachers. The results are analysed in three stages: Evaluation of the Scales internal consistency; Factor Analyse and Correlation Analyses. The general conclusion of the study calls into question the effective internalization of this key competence in the professional model of respondents.