In the following, first, the secondary education context is briefly surveyed from the Hungarian professional discourse because the majority of university learners come from that context. Then, the second part looks at studies from the Hungarian university context. The studies introduced in this section are mainly organised chronologically, except for some cases when logical continuity gave grounds for breaking linearity.

 

Three clusters among Hungarian secondary learners based on their technology use and learning outcomes were also identified (Tóth-Mózer, 2014). The three groups were named Efficient users, Indifferent users, and Outcome-oriented users. However, only marginal differences were found between the groups’ habits of technology use; in the entire sample, Internet use mainly centred around free-time activities as opposed to learning-oriented use (Tóth-Mózer, 2014). Implications of the study regard learners, teachers, and teacher educators because to meet the demands of 21st century education, learners’ relatively good familiarity with digital technologies should be exploited more effectively in a way that technology is integrated better and more skilfully into the public educational sphere. Learners and teachers should not be expected to be skilful users of ICT just because we live in the age of technology, and teachers’ technological pedagogical skills development should be heavily included in teacher educational programmes.

The same dataset was later also used to explore the Internet use of Hungarian secondary school learners involving digital problem solving, digital source finding and digital source evaluation competences in more detail (Tóth-Mózer & Kárpáti, 2016). Learners’ main source of information was the Internet, but both finding sources and evaluating them generally proved to be troublesome and learners’ performance in these domains were closely linked to their school’s performance on the Hungarian national competence test. It was found that those users who spend more time online were not evidently the most skilful users, and where technology use was favoured by the school environment and was not only limited to IT classes, students’ problem-solving, source finding and source evaluation skills were objectively better (Tóth-Mózer & Kártpáti, 2016). These findings point towards a general agreement that technology can serve as an extension of learning and teaching possibilities and that in the modern world, it is no longer access to technology, but digital competences that need to be harmonised. But implications of the study also regard the entire school system, as it was found that only digital technology-related investments seemed not to be enough to provide equal opportunities for those lagging in general learning competences.

In an exploratory case study project involving a group of 17 B1-level secondary EFL learners, Fekete (2017) implemented a blended course design and monitored learners’ engagement and attitudes towards learning EFL. Learners were taught regularly on-site in a technology-inclusive environment, while homework was assigned though an LMS system, the Macmillan Online Campus (MOC). It was found that the blended course design in itself did not result in enhanced learner autonomy and responsibility towards studying, but the LMS system contributed successfully to students’ learning quality by reminding them of homework assignments, constantly evaluating their homework performance and asking them to retake exercises that fell below a required minimum level (Fekete, 2017). The blended design made it possible for the instructor to easily monitor the at-home learning of students and resulted in some time saved in the classroom that would otherwise have been spent on checking homework – while checking homework was not completely eliminated from the classes for its valuable practice purposes. Moreover, learners perceived that their weekly average time spent on learning English grew from 30 to 41 minutes weekly accompanying the three English classes per week on-site. However, their downloaded average time spent on doing homework exercises measured by the LMS system was 30 minutes (Fekete, 2017). This signalled that learners overestimated their at-home EFL learning efforts, and that previously they had only been exposed to ca. 20 minutes of at-home learning weekly.

Nonetheless, explicit digital skills development can result in general skills development. It is unquestionable the main source of information for modern day learners is the Internet (Herczog & Racsko, 2012), which requires learners to be able to find and evaluate large amounts of information online. Tongori (2018) assessed Hungarian primary and secondary students’ (grades six to 11) ICT literacy in terms of accessing information by designing an online assessment tool that could be administered as part of a 45-minute lesson and could provide instant feedback on learners’ browsing skills performance. As part of the research project, data from over 10,000 learners were collected. Participants were required to find and understand data from certain websites (such as the homepage of a spa) and then answer questions through which points could be collected. The findings revealed that an intensive ICT literacy development phase could be observed in grades eight and nine (Tongori, 2018). The analysis of the data also confirmed that the initially significant advantage of girls in grades six to eight disappears by the time pupils enter secondary education, and unearthed significant correlations between learners’ general digital literacy and educational achievement (Tongori, 2018; Tongori & Molnár, 2018). This link, in line with international (e.g., ICTLP, 2007) and domestic (e.g., Tóth-Mózer, 2014) trends, confirmed that general literacy and numeracy skills are in connection with digital literacy.

Moreover, it was found that most recent educational policy changes, especially the privatisation of the secondary educational sphere, also resulted in measurable differences between skills and expected school-leaving examination scores of learners who access some sort of private (private or state-funded schools) education (Ercse & Radó, 2019). Thus, considering that general literacy and numeracy skills correlate with digital literacy, it is possible that those schoolchildren who access some forms of private or church-funded education receive better and more effective technology inclusive instruction too. However, this reasoning might be true the other way around; that is, those children who access private education have generally better literacy and numeracy skills, and this general knowledge is more successfully transformed in the online sphere.

There is also empirical evidence to claim that emotional intelligence and the successful prevention of learners’ addictive technology use correlate, and as emotional intelligence enhances over time, addictive behaviour becomes less predominant (Pásztor & Bak, 2020). By targeting emotional intelligence development, it is also possible for teachers to prevent problematic or addictive technology use of learners (Prievara, 2016). Learners continuously perform better when it comes to online source localisation as they grow older (Tongori & Molnár, 2018), but their skills development to assess the quality of these sources does not develop at the same pace (Tóth-Mózer & Kárpáti, 2016). A recent study involving 476 Hungarian secondary learners between the ages of 14 and 20 resulted in promising findings concerning teenagers’ and young adults’ YouTubing habits (Hegyi & Jagodics, 2020). It was found that the most popular YouTube channels participants watched regularly favoured civilised manners, avoided the use of swear words and were not biased when discussing complex problems (Hegyi & Jagodics, 2020). Learners also recognised and rejected cyberbullying and favoured positive feedback. Implications of the study contribute towards the understanding of how these online norms could be exploited and used as examples in classroom settings. Apparently, learners’ general cognitive development, numeracy and literacy skills development and emotional intelligence development simultaneously play important roles in affecting their digital competences.

Besides the learners’ perspectives, research also targeted the role and development needs of teachers. Conclusions of the representative large-scale study of Öveges and Csizér (2018) into the framework and effectiveness of foreign language instruction in the Hungarian public educational context stressed the importance of explicit and subject-specific ICT inclusion into teacher education and training programmes. Based on the data collected, it was emphasised as part of the conclusions of the project that practising teachers should utilise the possibilities of educational technology better. The reason for this was primarily that teachers mainly used Facebook to keep in touch with their learners, whereas other, more learner centred digital technologies would make it possible to integrate ICT to a larger extent. However, this could only be entailed by providing relevant networking and training possibilities for teachers in the public education sector (Öveges & Csizér, 2018).

Part of realising this aim could be ensured by developing and using digital coursebooks (Dringó-Horváth & Menyhei, 2020; Öveges & Csizér, 2018). It was found that foreign language textbooks dominant in the Hungarian public educational sphere offer more and more accessible (i.e., subscription or access fees are less predominant) and generally good quality digital materials, while the digitalisation of the textbooks used in other subjects had just begun (Dringó-Horváth & Menyhei, 2020). The Hungarian public education was found to be heavily coursebook-based (Dringó-Horváth & Menyhei, 2020; MDOS, 2016; Öveges & Csizér, 2018); therefore, a viable means of paradigm shift could be supported by a larger-scale digital revision of the textbook market. This digitalisation is being outlined by all major textbook publishers based on interviews with representatives (Dringó-Horváth & Menyhei, 2020).

Taking the previously introduced aspects into consideration, a major conclusion is that both from the learners’ and teachers’ perspective, using digital technologies in the classrooms is advantageous, but it requires much external support (e.g., from school leadership, teaching material designers). Furthermore, it is not a ‘magic solution’ for children with general competence (literacy and numeracy) problems. Apart from a supportive environment, use is determined by personal factors, but it is also vital that inclusion is pedagogically motivated, otherwise attitudes and beliefs towards integration cannot be changed for the better. It was repeatedly confirmed that learners are excellent recreational users of technology, but their learning-oriented use needs training. Inclusion in the public educational sphere is prompted by 21st century digital competence needs, but long gone are the days to look at digital technologies as quick fixes. Additionally, with first-level barriers (device ownership of learners, basic educational technology in schools) largely removed, present goals are to offer teachers technological pedagogical competence development-oriented training.

 

To assist the learning processes of students at the University of Eger who enrolled in an online course called The ICT foundations of the teaching profession, a volume of detailed lecture notes was designed (Forgó & Antal, 2013). The purposes of the notes were to 1) accompany the learning process, 2) provide guidance through examples, and serve as the 3) rationale for the course content. The course consisted of four major training modules and had to be completed through Moodle, the university’s LMS system. The four modules were:

To collect what technological tools were used by students and teachers in a techno-inclusive environment at a Hungarian university, Asztalos (2015) utilised a mixed methods approach. It was found that while a shift is traceable from previous studies in learners’ free-time technology use towards preferring social networking and instant messaging tools as opposed to emailing that had been the most frequent some years prior, only a few learners used the Internet in a way that would require higher-order skills such as creating digital content (Asztalos, 2015). Moreover, only half of the purposefully recruited technology expert instructors made use of their university’s LMS systems and use mainly centred around sharing documents with learners. Nevertheless, learners expressed that their seminars involving the design of wikis had contributed to their digital competence development, while their general dispositions towards ICT use did not change because it had been generally high in the first place (Asztalos, 2015). Additionally, similar to the conclusions of the surveyed international examples, no cause-and-effect relationships could be established between the use of technological tools and learners’ EFL proficiency development, but this also means that using technology in their instructional processes proved to be at least as effective as if technology had not been used.

Another study intended to observe 43 EFL students’ e-learning needs and habits at the University of Pécs (Simon, 2014). The results of the study indicated that learners mainly used the LMS system of the university (CooSpace), but attached positive attitudes towards it; however, only a quarter of the informants expressed that they had had some e-learning experience, and approximately seven out of the 11 participants with prior e-learning experience claimed that it had not been a pleasant one (Simon, 2014). However, even those learners who did not have any e-learning experience managed to provide definitions of the concept that were very accurate. It was also found that learners mainly used search engines and academic reference websites (e.g., Google Scholar) to access online materials, and their online reading customs mainly targeted websites of personal interest (Simon, 2014). This suggests that the participants registered technological progress and the educational possibilities of technology; however, they only had limited exposure to technology, and those who had had previous negative experiences displayed negative attitudes towards e-learning. Implications point toward the necessity of expertly designing e-learning environments that are supportive towards the learners all throughout the educational process.

To find out about Hungarian English majors’ experiences with blended learning, Simon (2016) turned Listening and speaking skills courses into blended ones at the University of Pécs. Digital environments provide ample opportunities for listening skills development (Fekete, 2017; Simon, 2016), which is one of the key development areas of foreign language pedagogies (Szabó, 2019). Blended courses offer a combination of online and face-to-face classes, in which the same technology is used online and on-site (Simon & Kollárová, 2015), and the same material is covered by both online and offline means (Fekete, 2017). In Simon’s (2016) research, both the teachers’ and the learners’ sides were explored. Relevant findings of the study concerned teachers’ attitudes towards e-learning, and it was yet again confirmed that their attitudes were shaped primarily by their prior experience, followed by the on-site available technical possibilities as the second determining factor of inclusion (Simon, 2016). Learners perceived the blended system (Edmodo) to be useful and easy to navigate. Students also reported language development gains through using Quizlet for vocabulary learning (Simon, 2016). Showcasing how technology changes at a rapid speed, Simon (2016) added that CooSpace (the LMS system used in Simon, 2014) had become obsolete by 2016. In yet another blended learning project in the same context, more recent findings echoed earlier experiences claiming that teachers’ expert content design roles were indispensable for the blended learning environments to succeed, and blended projects carried out by field experts create meaningful and efficient learning experiences (Simon, 2018).

In a pilot study targeting the digital competences of Hungarian teacher majors, it was observed that future teachers’ ICT abilities and beliefs about ICT use in education were mainly formed throughout their teaching practice (Dringó-Horváth & Gonda, 2018). It was also suggested that more specific training modules are needed for a paradigm shift that would result in more digitally competent teachers. Respondents in the study mainly desired that ICT specific training should be an integrated part of teacher education programmes and should not only be offered in the form of workshops (Dringó-Horváth & Gonda, 2018), although offering workshops might be a good solution for in-service teachers (Öveges & Csizér, 2018). As a result of a document analysis of university program structures and the description of teacher training programmes, Dringó-Horváth (2020) identified positive changes towards ICT inclusion in the programme descriptions under scrutiny but argued for the necessity of establishing professional development circles for the trainers and instructors involved in teaching these modules to ensure that the initiatives (what is written down in the official documents) meet reality (what is really done in these courses).

The examples reviewed above point towards several possible future directions. One of them is the necessity to include technology in the training of learners on all educational levels in a progressive, learner-centred, and experimental environment, which is only possible if there is access to technology and the teachers and instructors are vested with the necessary technological and techno-pedagogical knowledge to facilitate these learning environments (Molnár et al., 2020; Simon, 2016). There is a need (Dringó-Horváth & Dombi, 2020; M. Pintér, 2019; MDOS, 2016; Molnár et al., 2020) and necessity (Dringó-Horváth, 2020; Öveges & Csizér, 2018) to train instructors who can teach their specific subjects techno-inclusively. Implications of studies point towards the constant need to research specific learning environments to provide an overview of: