Findings and derived challenges concerning how school leaders should support ICT integration at schools

Abstract

One of the biggest challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic was to integrate ICT (Information and Communication Technology) into remote teaching. As managers, school leaders play a principal role in deciding how to overcome this challenge. This study aims to identify how school leaders support ICT integration at schools. To do so, the authors conducted a systematic literature review (SLR). A literature search using the ISI Web of Science, SCOPUS, and the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) yielded a total of 537 articles published between 2011 and 2020 (a manual search was undertaken between September 2020 – January 2021). The results suggest that school leaders influence ICT integration at schools in seven ways: encouraging ICT integration in the school community, facilitating ICT use, providing financial support, giving ICT training, collaboration, planning, and monitoring. The findings from this SLR provide valuable data, which could help authorities to evaluate school administrators’ roles in integrating ICT at schools. Additionally, policymakers can use the research results to provide a baseline for future assessments and guidelines for school leaders’ professional development. Finally, future research could examine the relationships between the factors identified in the SLR and how to measure school leaders’ support for ICT integration.