Teachers’ Pedagogical Autonomy, Professional Development and Students’ Digital Skills: New Evidence from Italy

In light of the recent education reforms in Italy (La Buona Scuola, Law 107/15) featuring autonomy and digital skills, this paper examines the impact of teachers’ pedagogical autonomy on students’ computer literacy. The empirical analysis is conducted using data from the latest cycle of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS 2018). Our results show that teachers’ pedagogical autonomy in itself is not significantly associated with students’ digital skills, but that when combined with certain types of professional development, it can positively influence students’ computer literacy. Based on our results, we argue for more localised resources and opportunities to be used for teachers to engage in reciprocal professional development via spontaneous peer support and learning over top-down standardised professional development programmes.