A classroom can be filled with modern technology and still teach in the old way. This review finds that what future teachers believe about technology may shape whether it actually changes learning. Technology has become an important part of teaching and learning.

It can move lessons beyond blackboards and chalk toward more interactive experiences, helping student performance, motivation, and problem-solving. It can also make teaching and learning more flexible, personalized, and accessible.

But the technology itself is not the whole story: future teachers’ proficiency and attitudes are critical because they form the backbone of future education. Their beliefs influence how prospective teachers will use technology in classrooms, affecting the quality of education and the success of bringing technology into teaching.

Significant gaps remain across methods and regions. That is why understanding future teachers’ beliefs is vital for promoting effective teaching practices in the future and enhancing those practices once they begin teaching. The review uses a systematic framework to bridge these gaps, showing how beliefs shape teaching practices and identifying directions for future research and policy.

The review maps what is known about future teachers’ beliefs about technology, identifies research gaps, and offers useful guidance for teacher education policy and practice. A search of seven electronic databases found a large body of research, but only the studies that met the review’s criteria were included.

Here is the catch: the research mostly examined general beliefs, while newer technologies and regional differences received limited attention. Most studies also relied on numerical measures rather than richer accounts of context.

Across the included studies, seven topic categories appeared, and most focused on technology beliefs in general. Other topics included teacher training, technology competence, comparisons, relationships, models, and views of technology-based teaching and learning.

The review also found that numerical research dominated, while studies combining approaches or using qualitative methods made up smaller parts of the research landscape. These seven themes represent the most discussed issues regarding future teachers’ beliefs about technology.

The most frequent topic was describing those beliefs in general. Another frequent topic was measuring beliefs during teacher training. Research on technology competence mainly focused on future teachers’ confidence and belief in their own ability to use digital tools. So the review followed a systematic approach to identify studies about future teachers’ beliefs regarding technology.

By bringing together a considerable volume of research and organizing its key information, the review identified important factors in measuring beliefs and unresolved questions about different technologies. The review mapped perspectives, research approaches, and findings across different educational settings and geographic contexts.

It confirmed broad agreement that technology matters in teacher education. But agreement about importance does not mean agreement about usefulness or implementation. Beliefs differ, and they are influenced by individual confidence, institutional support, and exposure to technology during teacher training.

The biggest unanswered question is what happens after training. Limited research follows future teachers into the workforce to examine how their beliefs affect their actual teaching practices. Few studies examine cultural and regional differences, and more research is needed on whether specific interventions can change or strengthen future teachers’ beliefs and abilities with technology.

Technology training cannot stop at teaching people which buttons to press. Future teachers’ confidence, support, and experience with technology can influence how ready they are to use it, but important questions about real classrooms remain unanswered.