In most European countries, including Hungary, the ubiquitousness of digitalization and its impact on all aspects of higher education are mainly a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The period of forced digital transition has demonstrated that higher education institutions can ensure continuity of teaching and learning, but it has also shown that there is still much to be done to make effective use of digital technologies in higher education for quality assurance, inclusion, and equity [1].

The importance of the topic in Hungary is demonstrated by the fact that—as in other countries—more and more initiatives have been launched to map and research the digital transformation of higher education, and to support the effective further development of the process [1].

The extent and effectiveness of digitalization is influenced by a variety of factors, which should be considered both individually and collectively, taking into account their impact on each other. Factors typically examined in the context of education include institutional support, educators’ beliefs about digital tools, digital competence of educators, technostress, self-efficacy, and the extent of tool use.

2. Information and Communications Technology Use

Although several studies have examined the use of information and communications technology (ICT) by teachers in higher education ^[2][3][4][5][8,9,10,11], no study has come to our attention that explores the factors influencing use or integration together. Studies of influencing factors have mostly focused on behavior intention, based on the view that intention to use covers use. In this research, ICT use is focused directly on, it means the frequency and extent of (self-reported) use of ICT for teaching and research purposes by higher education teachers, i.e., the range of ways in which higher education teachers use these tools, based on the six domains of the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) framework (see Section 2.3 for more details on the framework). In the studies that emerged after the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and that focused mainly on the experience of forced remote education, the use of tools in education was much more strongly represented than before, either looking at the whole process ^[6][12] or a sub-area, such as the use of tools in relation to assessment ^[7][13]. In addition, there are studies related to the need for and possible forms of continuous professional development related to tool use ^[8][9][14,15]. Improving the use of ICT among teachers in higher education is essential to enhance teaching and learning experiences, adapt to technological advancements, promote active and autonomous learning, increase accessibility and inclusivity, enhance efficiency and productivity, and foster a culture of lifelong learning. By embracing ICT, teachers can effectively prepare students for the challenges and opportunities of the digital age. Additionally, an in depth systematic review carried out using 100 research articles on academic performance and ICT use results, there was evidence of improved performance in educational practices enriched with ICT ^[10][16]. All this justifies the choice of this area as the main focus of this researchtudy.

3. Technostress

In encouraging teachers to use ICT more actively, we tshould not overlook the psychological and physical stress associated with technology use should not be overlooked, which Brod defined in 1984 as technostress: ‘‘a modern disease of adaptation caused by an inability to cope with new computer technologies in a healthy manner’’ ^[11][17]. Weil and Rosen put it this way ^[12][18]: “any negative impact on attitudes, thoughts, behaviors, or body physiology that is caused either directly or indirectly by technology”. Previous research has shown that there are a number of factors that can cause technostress, such as system failure, insufficient technical and social support in the use of technology, increased time spent on class preparation, and a negative presupposition in educational institutions related to the use of technology ^[13][14][2,19]. Studies in educational contexts have shown that teachers’ anxiety and stress about technology have a negative impact on their motivation and intention to use ICT ^[15][16][17][20,21,22]. They also have a negative impact on teachers’ actual use of digital tools ^[13][18][19][2,23,24]. Based on the above literature review, it can also be stated that in order to effectively reduce teacher technostress, teachers must have internal resources to assess the event or situation and external resources to assess their ability to handle the event or situation. The former is called individual factor, and the latter, environmental factor. Teacher technostress is, therefore, influenced by both individual and environmental factors, all of which need to be examined individually to provide appropriate support in reducing it. In this researchtudy, digital pedagogical competence is examined as an individual factor, and institutional support as an environmental factor. These two will be discussed in detail below, followed by the analysis of an additional aspect of the research model, namely, beliefs.

4. Digital Pedagogical Competence

The digital competences of teachers are considered to be a combination of professional, pedagogical and technological knowledge and skills ^[20][25], and are defined in more detail as including all “skills related to the use of ICT in teaching and learning as well as other educational activities (instructional management, related individual and organizational communication, research activities)” ^[21][26]. A number of models have been developed for assessing and classifying teachers’ digital competences, such as TPACK model, SAMR model, Technological Integration Matrix (TIM), RAT model, PICRAT model and DigCompEdu framework ^[22][27], which is the educational version of the DigComp framework, previously developed by the European Commission. Since it is somewhat more widespread in Hungary and there is also a version specifically optimized for higher education, in this rstudy wesearch used the DigCompEdu ^[23][28] framework is used to measure digital competence in education. The framework is general enough to be used in different educational contexts ^[23][28], with the advantage that there is a higher education-specific version. The negative impact of digital pedagogical competence on teachers’ technostress, which has been confirmed by several studies ^{[13][14][24][25]}[2,5,19,29], is significant because it ensures that teachers’ stress can be reduced by teaching them to use technology appropriately. Thus, by developing digital pedagogical competence, we can support teachers’ coping mechanisms with technology-induced psychological stress can be supported, and, in turn, positively influence technology use. The nature, complexity and personalization of institutional support can play a very important role in this process.

5. Institutional Support

Institutional support, as the main environmental factor, plays an important role in promoting teachers’ use of ICT and includes support from the institution for the use of technology for teaching (such as ensuring access to technology, providing digital resources, policy incentives, technical assistance, and encouragement) ^[26][27][28][30,31,32]. In this research, we indefine institutional support is defined as the institutional support perceived by teachers, and distinguish three subcomponents of it, as proposed by Zhao et al. ^[29][33]: (1) human infrastructure, (2) technological infrastructure, and (3) social support. The first two components are referred to in the literature as university support, and the third as collegial support. Technostress can be significantly reduced through institutional support ^{[13][14][30][31][32]}[2,19,34,35,36], thus, positively influencing technology use. Several studies have investigated the direct effect of institutional support on teachers’ technology use and found that it significantly promoted teachers’ technology use ^{[13][33][34][35]}[2,37,38,39]. Some studies have also shown the direct effect of institutional support on digital pedagogical competence ^[16][36][37][21,40,41]. While the pandemic has acted as a catalyst for digitalization processes and has indeed triggered complex, systemic changes in higher education, which certainly have an impact on the level of institutional support, an OECD 2021 survey reported that more support is needed in this area: only around 40% of respondents agreed that their institution provides them with the opportunity to develop digital skills specific to their field of education and research [1]. With that being said, it seems that university teachers’ own beliefs play an even bigger role than institutional support in the success of digitalization.

6. Teacher Beliefs

The use of technology in education has been established to be related to teachers’ beliefs ^{[38][39][40][41]}[42,43,44,45]. Liu et al. ^[42][46] pointed out that not all technology adoption models incorporate pedagogical beliefs, despite the fact that they are known to be crucial factors for the successful use of technology in education. When examining the integration of technology in teaching and learning, the most important beliefs are ICT self-efficacy and ICT perceptions, i.e., beliefs about the value of using technology ^[43][6], which need to be taken into account to achieve effective use ^[44][47]. Self-efficacy is defined by Bandura ^[45][48] as an individual’s belief in their own abilities to perform certain behaviors or to successfully complete certain tasks. Based on this, the concept of ICT self-efficacy can be defined as teachers’ belief and confidence in their ability to use technology effectively to achieve educational goals ^[44][47]. Self-efficacy, according to social cognitive theory, strongly influences an individual’s behavior towards performing a task, i.e., their ability and willingness to act (whether to make an attempt, how much effort to exert, whether to persist in performing the task ^[46][49]. The self-efficacy theory also suggests that emotional reactions are influenced as well (including stress and anxiety ^[45][48]). Similar results have been found in educational contexts: teachers’ ICT self-efficacy has been shown to be a critical factor influencing their behavior towards technology integration ^{[24][47][48][49][50]}[5,50,51,52,53], their perceived level of technostress ^[19][24][5,24], in addition to it being a strong predictor of their digital pedagogical competence ^[24][44][51][5,47,54]. In other words, if teachers have higher ICT self-efficacy, it is likely to indicate higher digital pedagogical competence ^[52][55]. Several studies have also investigated the mediating role of ICT self-efficacy and found that ICT self-efficacy mediates the effect of institutional ICT support on digital pedagogical competence ^[24][44][5,47], i.e., if there is more institutional ICT support, ICT self-efficacy will have a greater effect on digital pedagogical competence, while if institutional ICT support is lower, it will have a smaller effect. However, the direct effect of institutional ICT support on digital pedagogical competence was not found to be significant ^[24][5]. The results of Dong et al. ^[24][5] also showed that the indirect effect of ICT self-efficacy on technostress (through digital pedagogical competence) is higher than the directly detectable effect. This interesting finding further reinforces the key role of digital pedagogical competence in reducing teachers’ stress during ICT use. The other component in this area is ICT perceptions, i.e., beliefs about the positive role and value of digital tools in education. The concept summarizes the attitudes, habits and beliefs of educators about the integration of technology in educational activities ^[53][56]; it shows the extent to which they value ICT in education ^[44][47]. ICT perceptions play a key role in the integration of technology into teaching: positive ICT perceptions increase the likelihood of teachers’ use of ICT for teaching purposes, while negative perceptions hinder use ^{[40][42][51][54][55][56]}[4,44,46,54,57,58]. In addition, previous research has shown the positive impact of teachers’ perceptions of ICT on digital pedagogical competence ^[13][43][44][2,6,47]. Evidence seems to show that positive ICT perceptions of ICT are a prerequisite for teachers to enhance their ICT competence ^[57][59]. Moreover, results by Dong et al. ^[24][5] show that ICT perceptions have an indirect effect on technostress through influencing digital pedagogical competence. The mediating role of ICT perception, similar to that of ICT self-efficacy, was investigated by Wang and Zhao ^[44][47] in their research, and they concluded that ICT perception mediates the impact of university ICT support on digital pedagogical competence. Another interesting finding was that the direct effect of university ICT support on digital pedagogical competence is not significant. Thus, university ICT support has a positive effect on digital pedagogical competence only through influencing teachers’ ICT perceptions.