Use of ICT by teachers during confinement due to the COVID-19 and the students’ level of connection in Physical Education

Abstract

Faced with the COVID-19 pandemic situation, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) acquired a great deal of importance within the educational system in general and the PE area in particular. The aim of this study was to analyze: (1) the computer applications most used by PE teachers; (2) the variables that influenced their greater or lesser use; and (3) the number of students who connected before and after Easter and the effect of the digital divide.

Quantitative descriptive and exploratory design. An on-line ad hoc questionnaire was designed and administered to a sample of 526 PE teachers and different statistical analyses were carried out. The results show that teachers used a wide variety of computer applications in this situation, with a greater use made of the institutional e-mail, cloud storage and word processors, as well as the Office 365 toolkit. The influence of different variables in the use of ICT was analyzed, finding few significant differences, except in the evaluation. Finally, it was found that the number of connected students increased significantly after the Easter holidays, and that there is a digital divide, with increasing connectivity depending on the socio-cultural level of the families. It is concluded that the COVID-19 confinement has powerfully affected the use of ICT by PE teachers and that it would be interesting to carry out more research on its effects in the following courses and in teacher education.