Digitally Mediated and Culturally Responsive Classroom Management: Perceived Competence of Prospective Teachers in the Tribal and Bengali Context of Tripura

Culturally responsive classroom management, ICT integration, prospective teachers, teacher education, Tripura

Classrooms in Tripura bring together learners from Tribal and Bengali communities, and the state's teacher education programmes are simultaneously expected to prepare graduates for technology enriched instruction. The present study examined how confident prospective teachers feel about three families of classroom management skills: conventional skills, culturally responsive skills rooted in the Tribal and Bengali context, and digitally mediated skills. Data were gathered from 119 prospective teachers of The ICFAI University Tripura through the Classroom Management Skills Inventory (CMSI, Tripura Context), a 42 item Likert scale within which six items measure digitally mediated management and six measure culturally responsive management. A within subjects design was employed. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed a significant difference among the three skill families (F(2, 236) = 16.40, p < .001, partial eta squared = .122). Digitally mediated skills (M = 3.82) were rated significantly lower than both conventional (M = 3.97, d = 0.53) and culturally responsive skills (M = 3.95, d = 0.34), while the latter two did not differ. Second year trainees reported significantly stronger digital management skills than first year trainees. The findings identify digital classroom management as the weakest link in preparation and support deliberate integration of ICT based and culturally grounded management training in teacher education.