In February 2007 Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan released a teacher's competence standard of elementary school, lower and upper secondary school, in information and communication technology (ICT). For this paper, a fairly large sample of teachers (2,031 teachers in all) was asked to evaluate their competence on 18 items arranged in 5 categories of the MEXT standard, and a factor analysis identified 4 factors: (1) use of ICT during classes, (2) instruction in ICT ethics, (3) use of ICT in class preparation and other school-related matters, and (4) support of the use of ICT by students. Note, however, that in the case of the upper secondary school teachers, one item pertaining to communication with guardians of students is not included in Factor (3). Next a number of teacher attributes is considered-how many if any ICT related training courses the teacher has attended, and so on-and analyze the effects that these attribute have on the 4 factor scores.
