The factors influencing the digital transformation in Welsh schools: From policy to practice

Bawler, Rebekah Eve 2025. The factors influencing the digital transformation in Welsh schools: From policy to practice. EdD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This research explores how digital education policy in Wales is enacted within primary schools. The focus is on the roles of leadership, professional learning and infrastructure to develop a digital mindset, emphasising the organisational level, rather than the classroom-based delivery of digital skills to learners. Through a qualitative case study of two digitally leading primary schools and augmented by interviews with policy advisors and document analysis, the research investigates the characteristics and features of these schools along with the barriers they face in enacting their vision at a strategic level. Drawing on Enactment Theory (Ball et al, 2011a), Communities of Practice (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and supported by two significant pieces of research around digitally competent schools (Tearle, 2004 and Pettersson, 2017), the research considers the roles of policy actors, particularly the central role of the headteacher, in developing, implementing and sustaining an organisation-wide digital mindset within their school community, creating a culture of using digital tools and technologies by staff. This research aims to explore how national policy is translated into school-based reality and considers to what extent these theories explain the development of a digitally competent school learning organisation. The research found that there are both external and internal factors that influence how individual schools enact digital policy, and within these there are four overarching themes which interlink. External factors include the themes of national policy and infrastructure; Internal factors include the themes of leadership and professional learning. The study offers recommendations for policy makers, local authorities and school leaders to support all schools across Wales to become digitally enabled, suggesting a model that consists of a strategic, coherent national focus to harness the potential that digital tools and technologies can bring to school staff and help to provide equity of access to digital tools for all.

Item Type:	Thesis (EdD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Schools > School of Social and Spatial Sciences
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 September 2026
Last Modified:	23 Sep 2026 13:25
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/189719

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