Introduction

Training teachers for online delivery of lessons

A technological revolution is transforming education. All educational processes, especially after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, are technology-driven, and this requires both teachers and students to be able to use information and communication technology (ICT) for teaching and learning, respectively.Footnote 1 This is only possible if teachers have already developed relevant digital skills that contribute to the education of their students (Kołodziejczak and Roszak 2017). The rapid demand for remote teaching and learning has caused a transformation in the ICT included in traditional teacher training curricula and generated a requirement for learning to use new software designed for remote teaching and learning. Menelaos Tzifopoulos (2016) already emphasised the importance of incorporating ICT into the curricula of future Greek teachers some years before the onset of the pandemic. He highlighted the necessity for teacher training programmes to adapt to the evolving technological environment and equip budding teachers with the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively integrate ICT into their teaching methods. Looking further into his study, it is interesting to observe that the current Greek university curriculum for future teachers does not include compulsory courses related to ICTs (ibid.).

However, there are certain options available that cover fundamental computer programmes such as Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and Access) and internet usage for communication and research through basic digital applications (Tzifopoulos 2016). Moreover, there are four optional Computer Science courses (I, II, III, IV) that teacher candidates can take to acquire skills such as text editing, webpage design with an educational focus, multimedia usage, and proficiency in presentation programmes. Nevertheless, these courses do not specifically aim to prepare future teachers for online teaching but are rather designed to promote student teachers’ own research and academic progress.

As suggested by Derar Serhan, to better equip future educators for online teaching, it would be beneficial to include more ICT-related courses in their curriculum and expand the use of digital resources in all subject areas (Serhan 2020). Also, remote assessment has become a key area of focus, since traditional ICT curricula previously relied on in-person evaluations. Such evaluations may not be suitable for online learning environments, and educators need to explore new methods of assessing student learning that are better suited to virtual settings (Gamage et al. 2020).

Digital literacy

Digital literacy skills have become increasingly important in remote teaching and learning and therefore, the new ICT curricula should include the development of these skills to enable both educators and students to effectively navigate digital environments. In the context of the rapid development of internet technology, many new distance education processes are growing fast, while the institutional environment that supports such development is slow to change. In relation to distance education, defined as

education that uses one or more technologies to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor synchronously or asynchronously (Allen and Seaman 2017, p. 6),

some studies have investigated the digital skills and ICT competencies needed for online instruction. According to Wandee Kopaiboon et al., “ICT competency is composed of three major dimensions: knowledge, skill, and attitude” (Kopaiboon et al. 2014, p. 1803). The skills component refers to the ability to perform work in terms of accessing information; its processing, evaluation, production, management and communication; and the use of the internet network (ibid.). Evgeni Khvilon and Mariana Patru (2018) highlight collaboration and networking as important skills to be developed in ICT in the classroom to promote democratic learning. According to Magdalena Roszak and Barbara Kołodziejczak (2017), compiling and publishing professional materials, preparing knowledge assessment in the form of tests, analysing results, notifying students, maintaining effective student–teacher communication, and archiving learning resources are suggested as necessities to consolidate blended online learning. As for ICT literacy, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) points not only to these skills but also includes the ability to use ICT for the purpose of gathering, processing and presenting information to support activities between different groups of people for work purposes (Amini and Oluyide 2020). Finally, in an article entitled “Webinar technology: Developing teachers’ training programs for emergency remote teaching amid COVID-19”, Cathy Toquero and Karen Talidong (2020) emphasise the importance of developing teachers’ pedagogical skills relevant to emergency e-learning that can complement educators’ digital skills and enhance their virtual teaching strategies.

Greek teachers’ challenges in online delivery of preschool teaching

When examining the perceptions and experiences Greek preschool teachersFootnote 2 have had with the transition to online teaching and learning, it is crucial to note that there have been many challenges with the sudden switch to online lessons (prompted by COVID-19 regulations) in the country, especially for young children. When considering the effectiveness of online learning versus traditional in-person instruction, researchers and educators need to analyse the pros and cons of online educational procedures, as well as the factors that impact the efficacy of online courses.

Overall (not specifically at preschool level), recent research findings suggest that e-learning is a highly favourable method for teaching and learning, with many studies indicating that it can be just as effective or even more so than traditional formats (Encarnacion et al. 2021; Gopal et al. 2021; Hussein et al. 2020). On the other hand, some studies have found negative effects on student learning outcomes in online settings compared to traditional classroom ones, contradicting earlier studies that had reported positive outcomes.

The rise of screen-based media use in preschool teaching and the children’s extensive exposure to them is subject to some concerns in terms of their “impact on cognitive and socioemotional development and the importance of parental mediation” (Swider-Cios et al. 2023, p. 1). While Frankie Fong et al. refer to screen-based teaching as an immersive and socially responsive learning experience (Fong et al. 2021), other researchers raise concerns regarding its effect on executive functions (Jusienė et al. 2020) and behavioural changes (Poulain et al. 2018). The development of the three executive functioning components (working memory, inhibition and flexibility) has been found to influence young children’s academic success and classroom behaviour (Cantin et al. 2016; Morgan et al. 2019). As for preschoolers’ behaviour, this is frequently interpreted from the perspective that young children are unable to exert higher order control over pertinent cognitive processes, emotional responses and behavioural impulses (Isquith et al. 2005). This is due to the fact that they lack inhibitory control, are highly distractible, cognitively rigid, and lack organised or purposeful strategic behaviour and self-monitoring (ibid.).

The effectiveness of online learning can also be questioned (Pye et al. 2015). Our review of relevant literature revealed several other challenges. In a recent study conducted by Timothy Ford et al., early childhood education (ECE) teachers in the United States perceived low levels of engagement both on the part of the children themselves and their families; limited social connection; teachers’ own lack of expertise in online teaching as well as in methods for involving children in virtual learning; and lastly inadequate technical support and assistance (Ford et al. 2021). A study conducted in Greece to investigate how high school educators felt about teaching online and the support they received from their school during the pandemic found that teachers perceived the level of school support to be inadequate (Nikolopoulou and Kousloglou 2022). Additionally, the professional development strategy and the objectives/vision for online learning were the most heavily criticised aspects (ibid.). These findings are corroborated by Maria Perifanou et al. (2022), who revealed that primary and secondary school teachers among others (students and the state) involved in emergency distance teaching (EDT) faced a variety of challenges as a result of inadequate digital infrastructure, limited state support, lack of digital educational resources, and low levels of digital literacy among students, parents and teachers.

The current institutional framework and in-service teachers’ ICT competency

The framework currently in place in many educational institutions worldwide does not seem to support the implementation of an ICT curriculum in teacher education. In Chile, for example, despite the existence of documents such as “ICT Standards for Initial Teacher Training” and “Functional Map for ICT Training and Teaching Skills” (Brun and Hinostroza 2014), the expectations of improving trainee teachers’ teaching and learning by integrating ICT in teacher education have not yet been met. In Japan, although in-service and pre-service teacher education programmes are widely used, they do not incorporate distance learning methods and models (Saga 2006).

By contrast, Singapore uses online teaching to train educators for distance courses, and in Indonesia, many teacher education institutions promote online teaching skills through the EdTech Leaders Online (ETLO) programme of the Education Development Center (EDC) in Washington, DC, which prepares educators to teach remotely and deliver online courses (Burns 2011, p. 180). In England, there is also a national programme in place to train providers of professional distance education (Dudley 2014), while in Greece, regarding the training of teachers for distance education, there are currently two options. One is a non-public system where distance education is taught and certified by private institutions. The other is provision by public institutes, but here, teachers receive only limited support and insufficient guidance for teaching online courses, limiting the development of their digital skills.

Although several studies have shown that in some countries, teachers are among the most skilled ICT users, it seems that they are still unable to apply these skills to the way they teach (Pedró 2009). A study of initial teacher education (ITT) in Chile, covering all levels of the national system (preschool, elementary, special education and secondary), showed that ICT is not used regularly or systematically in ITT, due to ICT integration policies, curricular integration of ICT, competencies of stakeholders in ICT use and ICT use in teaching and learning activities (Brun and Hinostroza 2014). It seems that institutional contexts do not acknowledge the fact that the training phase is a key factor in promoting ICT-based skills in relation to the work of future teachers in schools (Graham and Thornley 2000) and this may explain why many students in ITT feel unprepared to integrate ICT into their future pedagogical practice (Twidle et al. 2006).

Another study, conducted in Turkey by Tuğba Cevriye Ozkaral and Recep Bozyigit (2020), investigated social studies and geography teacher candidates’ views about COVID-19 and online education processes and recommended that universities should improve their infrastructure and plan the training of lecturers and teachers for online education processes. A study of 220 teachers in Macedonia carried out by Vasilka Vitanova et al. showed that 42% of them had below-average or at most basic ICT literacy (including knowledge and skills to operate a computer), while 58% of them had good ICT literacy (Vitanova et al. 2015).

Tzifopoulos (2020) notes that many Greek in-service teachers are close to retirement and do not in general have adequate ICT training, finding themselves unable to cope with online classes and students growing up in a digital world, but there is also a majority of teachers in Greece who are adapting to the new conditions. This might be explained by the fact that in the pre-COVID-19 era, the Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs (MoERA) only had a few ICT training programmes for teachers in place, most of which were focused on technological literacy at a basic level, including Microsoft Office and internet access. Before the shift to online settings, many teachers received their training in this way or by enrolling in courses offered by fee-charging private organisations. As a result, the majority of Greek teachers lacked the necessary training which would have enabled them to effectively incorporate technology into their classrooms (Tzifopoulos 2020).

However, after the transition prompted by the pandemic, a few commercial organisations and Greek universities began offering advanced training in specific ICT integration fields at an affordable cost or even for free. By giving teachers the knowledge, abilities and tools to use technology to enhance teaching and learning, such as communication and pedagogical skills, digital content creation, student engagement strategies and problem-solving abilities, the goal of these programmes was to raise the quality of education. It was in this context that we conducted the study presented here, to investigate teachers’ ICT literacy, which is of paramount importance in distance education, and promotes the development of teachers’ multiple competencies through recurrent and ongoing training.

Early childhood education and ICT

As in all levels of education, the strong development of online learning has introduced a number of new problems into early childhood education. These problems not only pose a great challenge to preschool pupils who lack network awareness due to their age, but also put more pressure on teachers who need to be properly trained for online teaching. Nowadays, developing preschool curricula to support online learning is a challenge for education systems all over the world. Every school wants to make sure that it can deliver knowledge in daily or weekly online classes and intends to achieve students’ skills development. However, although several experts supported this learning alternative, it turned out during the pandemic that educational structures in many countries were outdated and some of them failed to adapt to distance learning. The latter attributed their failure mainly to internal causes and the fact that most of them had not offered courses for teachers to improve their e-learning skills in the run-up to the pandemic, stressing that distance teacher training did not exist in the past (Oliveira et al. 2021).

As reported by Christine Redecker et al. (2010), teachers need to be constantly trained in new technologies to meet the new demands. Some interesting findings on the use and achievement of educational goals through online learning in early childhood are presented by Paraskevi Foti (2020). Her study showed that during COVID-19 lockdown, Greek preschool teachers proved to be able and successful in using the tools available to them (online social networking environments that are considered useful)Footnote 3 and organising distance learning in its asynchronous form to promote collaboration with families. In studies of this kind, it is of particular interest whether educators’ evaluations of the distance learning materials are positive. In a pre-pandemic study on instructors’ experience of learning management systems, Ibrahim Almarashdeh notes that “educator satisfaction is considered very important for engaging students in the course and increasing their interaction with the course content” (Almarashdeh 2016, p. 249).

In Greece, the Ministry of Education commissioned the development of two official e-learning platforms: e-class, a traditional learning management system (launched in 2003), and e-me, an innovative personal learning environment (launched in 2015; Megalou et al. 2022). During the pandemic, the e-class platform in particular was considered by preschool teachers to be “very useful, characterized for ease of use by both instructors and learners, without requiring specialized technical knowledge to use it” (Foti 2020, p. 28). In another study of early childhood educators carried out in Australia, it was reported that teachers were confident when using technology for professional/personal purposes, but not so confident when attempting to integrate technology into teaching very young children. They also believed that training in online teaching was not important for preschool teachers (Hatzigianni and Kalaitzidis 2018). They claimed that educators’ attitudes and beliefs about the use of touchscreen technologies are related to children’s age. However, this study also showed that educators viewed overall confidence and hours spent with technology as a positive outcome for technology integration (ibid.). The experiences of teachers in India were also positive, with teachers preferring online classes to regular classes due to daily difficulties (such as loss of time in commuting, traffic problems, etc.) in accessing physical classrooms (Shenoy et al. 2020).

Within the Greek context there is insufficient empirical evidence regarding preschool teachers’ ICT training and their perceptions of their readiness to teach online. Therefore, the present study investigated Greek preschool teachers’ readiness for the transition to online teaching and the skills they acquired – not least through learning by doing – during the pandemic. We also intended to identify the key skills required for effective online teaching and the curriculum changes deemed important for training future teachers (Khvilon and Patru 2018). Our research questions were as follows:

  • RQ 1 What challenges did preschool teachers face during the transition to online education? How did they cope with these challenges?

  • RQ 2 Did in-service preschool teachers’ prior training in ICT in Greek settings influence their perceptions for the occurrence of problems in distance learning?

  • RQ 3 Are Greek ICT-certified teachers more ready than uncertified ones in solving the difficulties presented by distance learning?

  • RQ 4 Did the responsible local education authorities (in terms of preschool catchment areas),Footnote 4 or administrative regions support the online learning activities?

Method

Our research team consisted of the three authors of this article. The first COVID-19 lockdown in Greece was implemented on 23 March 2020 and lasted until 4 May 2020. We conducted our research in May 2020. After obtaining ethics approval from the Assembly of the Department of Early Years Learning and Care of the University of Ioannina, we set about recruiting participants.

Participants

To invite preschool teachers to participate, we followed convenience sampling, which is a non-probability sampling technique where participants are selected based on their accessibility and willingness to participate in the study (Acharya et al. 2013). We chose this technique due to a lack of resources and researchers’ time. Nonetheless, another parameter was considered. The Greek education system has a centralised administrative structure that starts with the Ministry of Education and frequently prioritises metropolitan communities over rural ones.

All over the world, the online teaching challenges encountered by educators residing in urban environments differ from those encountered in rural environments. Prevailing educational disparities are further exacerbated by unequal access because of insufficient resources (e.g. unavailability of 4G internet connection, insufficient numbers of PCs/laptops in schools, technological inequality and lack of access to online learning media etc.) and facilities compared to major urban centres like the capital (Batubara 2021; Aguliera and Nightengale-Lee 2020; Khatri 2019). Thus, our own study involved participants from both rural and urban communities. Our sample comprised 110 in-service teachers (98% of them women) who were working in early childhood education and care departments in rural (Epirus) and urban (Athens and Thessaloniki) communities in Greece during the time of our research. Specifically, 75.5% (n = 83) were employed in the public sector, and 24.5% (n = 27) were working in the private sector. During the first COVID-19 lockdown in Greece, 62.7% (n = 69) of them were working from home. The majority of our sample (70%, n = 77) had an ICT certificate,Footnote 5 and many (47.3%, n = 52) considered that the training for this certificate covered the distance teaching needs arising with the sudden implementation of pandemic-related school closures. The characteristics of the participants are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Descriptive statistics of characteristics of participants (frequencies and percentages)
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Measures

For this quantitative pilot study, we developed a three-part data collection tool that clearly reflected our objectives. Quantitative research involves collecting and analysing numerical data to answer research questions. Given that our study aimed to investigate relationships between variables (i.e., teachers’ ICT learning and their readiness to teach online), and our lack of time for using qualitative tools (e.g. interviews), we felt a quantitative approach to be appropriate.

The questionnaire contained 40 items organised into three parts and used open questions and multiple-choice questions to ask for information on attitudes. Fifteen items were related to a range of demographic data (gender, age, socio-demographic status, highest educational level, community and type of institution in which they currently worked, years of educational service, level of education in new technologies, employment sector). A further 11 items were related to the evaluation of online learning tools, while the remaining 14 items dealt with participants’ behaviour and beliefs about distance learning difficulties. The latter included teachers’ approval levels, which were directly measured using a five-point Likert scale in relation to the use of online learning tools. Only questionnaires submitted with answers to all questions were considered complete. In order to support the questionnaire’s validity and reliability as well as assess its internal consistency, we set the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient at .70. We used descriptive statistics (percentages, means, standard deviations and frequencies) to present the results.

Procedure

Using convenience sampling, we approached teachers at 63 urban and 47 rural preschools in Greece. All information regarding the subject and purpose of the study was briefly explained on the first page of the survey, including participants’ rights and researchers’ contact details. Thus, participants provided their informed written consent at the beginning of the questionnaire before filling in the rest of it. The study took place in May 2020 and we made the questionnaire available online on Google Docs for two weeks so teachers could fill it in at a time convenient to them and take as long as they needed to respond.

Ethical issues

Participation in the study was voluntary and anonymous. The answers were intended to reflect the attitudes and beliefs of early childhood educators about distance learning tools and structures, drawing on their own experiences. Particular attention was paid to ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of data (Callegaro et al. 2014).

Data analysis

We used quantitative research methods such as frequencies and percentages to analyse the socio-demographic characteristics as well as the teachers’ answers. In addition, we calculated means and standard deviations to investigate whether in-service teacher training in ICT has an impact on (1) their self-efficacy in online education and (2) the challenges of online teaching. Finally, we examined the relationship between regional and municipal educational authorities with ICT support in online teaching.

Results

Based on participants’ responses, we conducted a qualitative analysis of preschool teacher’s own perceptions of their self-efficacy in online teaching immediately after the first COVID-19 lockdown in Greece. This analysis showed that most teachers holding an ICT training certificate felt ready to teach an online lesson (55.8%, n = 43), while many believed that they could create a productive and positive learning environment for their students and evaluate their students’ skills and school performance (40.2%, n = 31). We measured a significantly lower rate of self-efficacy in conducting an online course among non-certified teachers in the ICT field, as shown in Table 2, even though more than half of them (54.5%, n = 18) firmly believed that they could monitor and assess children through ICT.

Table 2 Teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in online teaching immediately after the first COVID-19 lockdown in Greece
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The total self-assessed ICT knowledge of certified teachers was on average 3.10 ± 1.14, whereas the average knowledge of non-certified teachers was 3.57 ± 0.86 (Table 3).

Table 3 Self-reported knowledge of ICT in distance education
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However, during the first COVID-19 lockdown in Greece, many non-certified ICT teachers had introduced distance learning (60.6%) in its asynchronous form, such as communication via e-mail to provide feedback on assignments or answer questions (48.5%, n = 16). This form of distance learning was also preferred by certified teachers (44.1%, n = 34), most of whom used it 1–2 times a week (36.3%, n = 28), as shown in Table 4. In terms of frequency of use, the sample of non-certified teachers was divided into two equally sized factions. One comprised those who rarely used distance learning methods such as interactive online modules for providing interactive learning experiences that students can complete on their own, multimedia educational elements like videos, quizzes and games or pre-recorded lectures for students to watch at their convenience (30.3%, n = 10). The other group comprised those who used these methods once or twice a week (30.3%, n = 10). These findings do not prove that holding an ICT training certificate automatically fosters teachers’ implementation of new technologies in distance education (Table 4).

Table 4 The application of new technologies in the distance education during COVID-19
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With regard to the challenges they encountered in delivering distance education, the following points were considered the most important in both groups: insufficient staff training (certified 74%, n = 57 and non-certified 66.6%, n = 22), which focused mostly on difficulties in designing and delivering effective online courses; lack of educational and supervisory material (27.2%, n = 21 and 24.2%, n = 8); and challenges in managing online classrooms (74%, n = 57 and 66.6%, n = 22); lack of interpersonal contact with children (71.4%, n = 55 and 87.8%, n = 29); need for social interaction (74%, n = 57 and 69.6%, n = 23) and inexperience in distance education (63.6%, n = 49 and 63.3%, n = 21). The latter addresses unfamiliarity, the difficulty of adjusting to teaching in a virtual classroom, frustration with online learning platforms, and a lack of understanding online assessment. Concerning family life, some of them felt disturbed (11.6%, n = 9 and 24.2%, n = 8) as they could not set aside specific times of the day for teaching, grading and responding to student e-mails, as well as scheduling regular breaks for their own family time (Table 5).

Table 5 Challenges of distance education (frequencies and percentages)
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Two trends emerged as being decisive in teacher training programmes for distance education: (1) educational planning and evaluation, i.e. establishing clear learning outcomes, developing online courses, monitoring students’ progress and evaluating the effectiveness of delivery (certified teachers 83.1%, n = 64 and uncertified 84.8%, n = 28) and (2) educational legislation and structural administrative matters (41.5%, n = 32 and 39.3%, n = 13), since they establish standards and procedures for accountability in education as well as for the management and operation of schools, ensure equity, provide funding and resources and ongoing support to teachers by creating a help desk or providing access to technical support staff (Table 6). This finding is likely to reflect the prevailing uncertainty experienced by numerous educators regarding the procedures associated with distance learning. This circumstance may also indicate their perspectives on the efficacy and viability of designing online lessons.

Table 6 Courses in teacher training programmes for distance learning
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Further analysis, summarised in Table 7, revealed additional daily challenges in designing and implementing the transition to online education. Specifically, many teachers encountered problems related to the assessment of children (certified teachers 80.5%, n = 62 and uncertified 78.7%, n = 26), since there were limited opportunities for observation and interaction, and they experienced difficulties in maintaining academic integrity. It is remarkable that teaching methods and practices were mostly identified by non-certified teachers as a daily teaching problem (64.9%, n = 50 and 81.8%, n = 27), which highlights that comprehensive teacher training is an area worthy of attention where distance learning is widely used to prepare pre-service teachers. This would improve future teachers’ academic qualifications and then provide in-service professional development in specific subjects, content areas and teaching methods (Khvilon and Patru 2002, 2018).

Table 7 Daily challenges in the delivery of distance education (frequencies and percentages)
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In the next three tables (Tables 8, 9 and 10), we present the outcomes of asking teachers to evaluate their ICT skills through self-assessment (measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = excellent to 5 = very poor) and to provide information about the community in which they lived and worked at the time of our study. The aim was to report on the quality of support and care provided by the local educational authorities during the teachers’ work before and during the pandemic and relate it to certified and non-certified teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy in using ICT for online teaching. After applying the self-assessment tools of the above-mentioned groups (certified/uncertified), we recalculated the data according to geographical criteria, isolating urban areas (the administrative regions of Athens and Thessaloniki). Taking into account the fact that public services in urban centres operate in a wider range of institutions, the results suggest that public providers of distance learning programmes have contributed little to the development of teachers’ ICT skills. This impression is reinforced by the fact that almost half of our sample stated that they did not receive the support they needed to improve their ICT skills and develop further by being offered missing elements of assessment and accreditation (Tables 8 and 9).

Table 8 Working conditions and technical support
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Table 9 Self-evaluations of ICT knowledge by type of region
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Table 10 Teachers’ self-evaluation of their ICT knowledge by type of community (urban/rural)
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However, when recalculating the self-assessments of ICT knowledge of teachers working in urban communities, it is of greater interest that there are no extreme values in Athens and Thessaloniki (mean = 3.33 ±1.07) (Table 10). The importance of this finding becomes clear when these results are considered together with the economic factor. In particular, these communities are more prosperous than rural ones, so this may have had an impact and created an adaptable culture in such a way that no one felt fully prepared or unprepared to use ICT.

Educators located in urban communities (Athens and Thessaloniki) exhibited a minor elevation in their self-assessed ICT proficiency compared to educators situated in rural areas. As shown in Table 10, the rural locales displayed a greater standard deviation, signifying a broader spectrum of self-assessed ICT knowledge among rural teachers. While the discrepancy in average values is not significant, it implies that urban teachers potentially regarded their ICT knowledge as being marginally superior to that of their rural peers. Nevertheless, we found the variance in self-assessment to be more extensive among teachers in rural settings.

Discussion

There has been much discussion about the impact of school closures on teachers at all school levels. The results of the above analysis highlight some of the skills gaps challenging effective distance teaching and learning in Greece and demonstrate that Greek preschool teachers were new to distance education. Since the majority of in-service teachers had no first-hand distance learning experience in terms of online teacher training and considered their training to be inadequate (Fotakopoulou et al. 2020), they were confronted with a teaching situation they were completely unfamiliar with, and suddenly expected to use distance teaching and learning tools and processes to deliver their work.

The age range of our sample was 35–54, which means that the participants were neither too old and close to retirement to be able to work using ICT (Tzifopoulos 2020), nor too young to have gained at least some experience to complement their teacher training and their own education at the schools they had attended. In other words, they had already had time to work in preschool education and understand the need to attend seminars and training for distance learning and updating their knowledge. However, the fact that the majority of our sample (75%) worked in the public sector probably puts into perspective the claim of feeling “reassured” and “job secure” (public preschool teachers) in relation to the insecurity of private teachers who experienced higher levels of job competition and the threat of unemployment.

Considering that 70% of our sample had an ICT training certificate, it appears that preschool teachers felt anything but confident, regardless of the field in which they worked. To be precise, the likelihood of holding an ICT training certificate seemed to increase with years of work experience, since we found that teachers with 10–20+ years of work experience had ICT certificates (77.7%). Although more non-ICT-certified preschool teachers implemented distance education than certified teachers, the latter reported higher levels of inadequate staff training and inexperience in distance education, as well as higher levels of self-efficacy in teaching an online course. This is likely due to the fact that certified teachers are in lockstep with non-certified teachers in recognising the breadth of the potential of new technologies and thus the extent of their shortcomings.

Thus, our findings suggest that educational institutions should offer teachers continuing professional development opportunities so they can improve their abilities. These training courses should cover subjects including effective use of technology, online teaching, and techniques for online evaluation and feedback. Finally, it would also be desirable for educational institutions to offer additional support and resources to teachers to help them develop their confidence and skills in delivering distance education.

However, while preschool teachers who were not ICT-certified did implement online teaching, they did not meet current educational needs. Most of them were not up to date in terms of ICT skills, so they were forced to take some fast-track courses to start teaching online, they did not have the opportunity to delve into the processes of distance teaching and learning or to learn about the assessment procedures for students. In other words, the conditions led many teachers to treat distance education as a supplementary and temporary process until society would return to normalcy, rather than being able to regard and experience it as a comprehensive curriculum with reliable and valid tools and methods. This could explain why non-ICT-certified teachers considered some basic procedures to be the biggest challenges, such as educational planning, teaching methods/practices and evaluation. It seems reasonable to suspect that non-ICT-certified educators might also gain from peer support and mentorship, since ICT certified colleagues could share their experiences in peer support groups and educate them as well.

However, as expected, both ICT-certified and non-certified teachers spoke to the importance of evaluating children’s progress. Teaching at a distance requires that all educational processes are carefully planned and designed (Lockwood 2013) and thus evaluation is one of the most critical factors in the success of a distance learning programme. This is, as Mary Burns states, “one of the field’s least understood and least practiced components of distance learning, a reality that effectively and inevitably degrades the quality of any distance education program” (Burns 2011, p. 268). It should begin in the earliest stages of distance education planning and continue throughout the life of the programme, since one of its critical benefits is that it allows distance educators to verify the applicability of their programme’s theoretical framework (ibid.). There are several effective strategies that can be used to assess young children’s learning in a remote setting such as observation, parental feedback, online quizzes and games, and interactive assignments.

Interestingly, our study shows that certification in ICT did not have a significant impact on teachers’ philosophy and attitudes towards technology. Olga Fotakopoulou et al. (2020) found that educators are generally confident when using technology for professional/personal purposes, but less confident when integrating technology into teaching very young children. Another important finding of our own study is that the sample of teachers who were ICT-certified used an asynchronous form of distance education. The likelihood of not having the resources to implement modern distance learning was high – partly because the transition to e-learning was an unexpected and sudden process for which no one was prepared, but also because 84% of ICT-certified teachers said they needed more access to ICT infrastructure, including hardware, software and connectivity. In addition, they had to factor in the technical resources available in their pupils’ family homes.

However, it is also of great importance to explore the possibility that educators, including ICT-certified ones, may lack confidence to conduct a live online class (i.e. synchronous delivery). This could be explored further in future research, i.e., whether the ICT training certificates currently available for future teachers make them feel confident and empowered to teach remotely. Our own findings so far do not confirm that an ICT training certificate necessarily encourages teachers to use technology in distance education. However, the inadequacy of their ICT training and their inexperience in distance education were mentioned by all preschool teachers in our sample as being among the major difficulties they faced with the sudden requirement to switch to distance education. This suggests that further knowledge on the subject seems important to teachers at a time when educational processes are changing dramatically.

It is crucial for teachers to have a strong understanding of ICT tools in order to improve the quality of education and to enhance their pupils’ learning through educational apps that were integrated into the software required for teaching during COVID-19 lockdown. These apps, which include interactive simulations, educational games and virtual field trips, can be permanently incorporated into the regular preschool curriculum. Juho Kahila et al. highlight the importance of designing games that align with educational objectives and are age-appropriate (Kahila et al. 2020).

It is also worth noting that a large percentage of preschool teachers in our sample considered the lack of interpersonal relationships with teachers and peers, as well as the need for social interaction in general, as extremely important. This finding is corroborated by a large (pre-pandemic) body of literature that points to the high importance of interaction with students and peers for children’s cognitive and social development (Howes and Phillipsen 1998; Smith and Hart 2002; Blackledge and Hunt 2019; Tobin et al. 2015). While this kind of interaction was not easy to maintain during lockdown, there are some ways to address this need through encouraging virtual communication, using interactive online tools and fostering collaboration and parent–child interaction.

Finally, both groups (ICT-certified and non-certified preschool teachers) expressed a particular need to be supported by the local education authorities and the institution in which they worked in order to develop the skills required for distance teaching. Our findings lead to the conclusion that the minimum training required for online teaching could be increased and specified by some changes in teacher training curricula, in a manner not only appropriate for teachers in the pre-service phase but also for the in-service training of experienced teachers. Perhaps the most important aspect here is the amount of time and money spent by the local education authorities on a variety of online teaching activities. Since distance learning courses for teachers are usually offered in an asynchronous format, it is clear that basic ICT skills should be part of the general continuing training that the government offers to in-service teachers. Furthermore, our findings imply the type of skills teachers need for distance teaching and highlight the need to support teachers in such a crisis.

Limitations and recommendations for future research

Like many studies conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, ours was prompted by the unexpected opportunity to investigate the immediate experience of teaching and learning in exceptional circumstances. Without much time to prepare our research questions, design the questionnaire and recruit participants, it is not surprising that our study has some limitations. There is no doubt that our findings highlight the importance of teacher training in relation to distance teaching and learning methods for successful outcomes at all levels of formal schooling, including preschool. However, since the questionnaires were completed online, participants may have interpreted questions differently than we had intended (Fox et al. 2003). Furthermore, the accuracy of the responses may have been subject to social desirability bias or acquiescence bias. Other limitations include the fact that the evaluation of teacher training in ICT and their efficacy were self-reported. Ideally, such assessments would need to be recorded as reliably and validly as possible, using objective criteria and avoiding subjective judgements based on self-reports.

In addition, it is important to note that only a small number of teachers participating in our survey were working in the private sector, so more teachers from this sector should be included in future research. Moreover, our study’s non-probability convenience sampling method may not be representative of the population being studied – a possible drawback that must be taken into account in terms of its restricted generalisability.

Therefore, it is important to carefully consider the limitations of the questionnaire when interpreting its results and to be cautious when generalising these results to other populations or contexts. It is desirable to use other sampling methods such as interviews in conjunction with convenience sampling to ensure that the sample is representative of the population and to minimise the risk of bias. Moreover, interviews can be a useful quantitative approach for studying teachers’ perceptions and provide in-depth data that can reveal insights into teachers’ attitudes.