Teachers’ Attitudes towards the Use of Technology in Teaching and Learning

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Table of Contents

Attitude
Relationship between attitude and belief
Teachers’ attitudes towards technology and its use in teaching
Factors that influence teachers’ attitudes
Conclusion
References

Attitude

The availability of technology equipment in schools does not provide assurance that teachers will use them effectively. The teacher is critical in determining how technology is used in a classroom. As a result, teachers must possess the right attitude towards technology and its application in teaching and learning.

Yusuf and Balogun noted that scholars have defined attitude as “one’s positive or negative judgment about a concrete subject” (Yusuf and Balogun, 2011, p. 19).

In this context, they noted that analysis of information concerning the effect of an action based on their negative or positive outcomes were responsible for determining one’s attitude. Further, researchers have noted the close relationship between teacher’s attitude and the use of technology in teaching and learning.

Studies have linked positive attitude towards technology to high rates of usages in learning and teaching. For instance, a recent research by Enayati, Modanlo, and Kazemi established that teacher’s attitude towards “the use of technology in education was positive” (Enayati, Modanloo and Kazemi, 2012, p. 10958).

On the other hand, poor attitudes towards technology among teachers led to low-levels of technology adoption in learning and teaching.

Relationship between attitude and belief

Teachers hold two fundamental beliefs in teaching. This consists of a traditional belief or direct transmission view and student-centred view or constructivist view. The traditional belief puts the teacher at the centre of learning and teaching. The teacher communicates knowledge while students remain attentive to teaching i.e., the learner remains a recipient of knowledge and has no active role.

On the contrary, constructivist view emphasises the importance of the learner in teaching and learning. In this process, the learner takes an active role in learning.

Teachers who hold constructivist view often encourage students to conduct inquiry, ask questions, find solutions to problems, and explore subjects of interests and give learners opportunity to contribute in learning processes. This view stresses the importance of reasoning and thinking rather than passive acquisition of knowledge.

Therefore, the belief that a teacher holds has significant influences on decision-making and subsequent actions that the teacher may perform in learning and teaching (Palak and Walls, 2009). A study that wishes to explore the teacher’s practices should also conduct a simultaneous study on the teacher’s educational belief systems.

This is important because teacher’s beliefs have influences on “teachers’ perceptions and judgments, which in turn influence their classroom behaviour” (Palak and Walls, 2009, p. 417). Palak and Walls reviewed past studies and noted that most of these studies concluded that teachers who held student-centred approach often incorporated technology in their classroom instructions.

In addition, teachers were willing to explore new teaching methods and shift their beliefs by using such new methods. As a result, studies have reported positive links between high-levels of using technology and adoption of new teaching belief. Such changes were positive with student-centred approaches.

Scholars have warned against using teachers’ belief alone to provide an account of how teachers use technology in their classrooms. They claim that teachers’ practices and use of technology are “inextricably tied to other contextual and organizational factors” (Palak and Walls, 2009, p. 418).

On the issue of teachers’ belief, other scholars noted that it is ‘messy’. Such studies claim that belief is not a fixed concept with a single definition. Instead, they claimed that defining belief was a major challenge because it was impossible to subject it to empirical studies.

Consequently, the researcher concluded that studying a belief concept would involve simultaneous investigation of other several factors, which could even conflict with each other under certain circumstances. Others believed that belief was context-based, determined by situations, implicitly defined, and ill-structured concept.

One would conclude that teachers who hold constructivism view had positive attitude towards adoption of technology in classroom instruction.

Teachers’ attitudes towards technology and its use in teaching

Al-Zaidiyeen, Mei, and Fook conducted a study with 650 teachers randomly picked in Jordan in order to determine “the level of ICT usages among teachers and issues concerning teachers’ attitude towards the use of ICT” (Al-Zaidiyeen, Mei and Fook, 2010).

Their study revealed that teachers had “a low level of ICT use for educational purpose, teachers hold positive attitudes towards the use of ICT, and a significant positive correlation between teachers’ level of ICT use and their attitudes towards ICT was found” (Al-Zaidiyeen, Mei and Fook, 2010). They concluded that teachers ought to give high priority to the use of technology in teaching.

On the same note, Palak and Walls (2009) identified three issues about the use of technology among teachers. They used an integrated mixed-methods approach for the study. Their study showed the following:

Teachers adopted the use of technology in areas of preparation, management, and in administration
Teachers rarely used technology to facilitate constructivist view even among teachers who held the same view
Teachers who were in technology advanced schools used technology to promote their own already existing traditional views

Teachers’ attitudes towards the use of technology in teaching and learning and teachers teaching belief

Scholars have noted that the need to understand teacher attitudes towards technology adoption in learning and teaching has gained significance due to availability of technology infrastructure in most schools.

Bakr conducted a study among Egyptian teachers in order to explore their attitudes towards computers in teaching and learning. The study consisted of 118 public schools, both male and female. Findings showed that the “Egyptian public school teachers’ attitudes towards computers were positive” (Bakr, 2011).

Current studies have demonstrated that teachers have embraced positive attitudes towards technology usages in learning and teaching. One can attribute this change to changes in belief as most pre-service teachers adopt student-centred approach in teaching and learning.

Enayati and colleagues used a sample of 380 teachers by using stratified sampling based on the Morgan table (Enayati et al., 2012). The study aimed at reviewing teachers’ attitude towards implementation of technology in teaching. The study used descriptive method alongside T tests to analyse data and present findings.

They found out that teachers’ attitude concerning advantages of “implementing technology in education, the amount of technology efficacy in education, preconditions of implementing technology in education and effectiveness of technology in education was positive” (Enayati et al., 2012). They also noted that teachers had a positive attitude towards the use of technology in education.

Teachers have changed their belief systems as many schools adopt information and communication technology in learning and teaching. As a result, teachers have acknowledged that the traditional belief systems cannot help students in a society where ICT has dominated the system.

Teachers have noted that changing trends in a global environment and the need for them to adopt a positive attitude in learning and teaching and use the same to improve quality of education.

On teachers’ belief, studies have shown that teachers must strive to go deep and unearth the belief systems, personal factors that influence them, fellow teachers, and their learners’ behaviours (Xu, 2012).

Factors that influence teachers’ attitudes

Many schools around the world have implemented teaching by using ICT infrastructures. However, Buabeng-Andoh noted that although there are intensive investments on “ICT infrastructure, equipments, and professional development to improve education in many countries, ICT adoption, and integration in teaching and learning have been limited” (Buabeng-Andoh, 2012).

The researcher reviewed factors that had influences on teachers’ attitude towards the use of technology. They include “personal, institutional, and technological factors that encourage teachers’ use of computer technology in teaching and learning processes” (Buabeng-Andoh, 2012; Tsai, P., Tsai, C., & Hwang, G., 2010).

Further, the study identified other factors as “teacher-level, school-level and system-level factors that prevent teachers from ICT use” (Buabeng-Andoh, 2012).

Finally, the article classified barriers to use of technology among teachers as “lack of teacher ICT skills, confidence, pedagogical teacher training, suitable educational software, limited access to ICT, rigid structure of traditional education systems and restrictive curricula” (Buabeng-Andoh, 2012).

Therefore, it was necessary to understand the extent to which these factors influenced teachers’ attitude and the use of technology in order to develop effective ways of tackling them (Teo, 2011; Afshari et al., 2009).

Conclusion

Current studies have consistently shown that teachers’ attitudes towards technology have become positive. Moreover, many teachers have changed their beliefs in order to adopt and use ICT infrastructure in teaching and learning.

Such moves aim to enhance the quality of education and adapt to changes in learning and teaching environments. While such positive developments have taken place, there are still barriers that teachers face in adoption of technology in teaching and learning.

References

Afshari et al. (2009). Factors affecting teachers’ use of information and Communication Technology. International Journal of Instruction, 2(1), 77-104.

Al-Zaidiyeen, N., Mei, L., and Fook, F. (2010). Teachers’ Attitudes and Levels of Technology Use in Classrooms: The Case of Jordan Schools. International Education Studies, 3(2), 21-218.

Bakr, S. (2011). Attitudes of Egyptian Teachers towards Computer. Contemporary Educational Technology, 2(4), 308-318.

Buabeng-Andoh, C. (2012). Factors influencing teachers’ adoption and integration of information and communication technology into teaching: A review of the literature. International Journal of Education and Development using Information and Communication Technology, 8(1), 136-155.

Enayati, T., Modanloo, Y., and Kazemi, F. (2012). Teachers’ Attitudes towards the Use of Technology. Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research, 2(11), 10958- 10963.

Palak, D., and Walls, R. (2009). Teachers’ beliefs and technology practices: a mixed- methods approach. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 41(4), 417–441.

Teo, T. (2011). Factors influencing teachers’ intention to use technology: Model development and test. Computers & Education, 1315(11), 137.

Tsai, P., Tsai, C., & Hwang, G. (2010). Elementary school students’ attitudes and self- efficacy of using PDAs in a ubiquitous learning context. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 26(3), 297-308.

Xu, L. (2012). The Role of Teachers‘ Beliefs in the Language Teaching-learning Process. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 2(7), 1397-1402.

Yusuf, M., and Balogun, M. (2011). Student-Teachers’ Competence and Attitude towards Information and Communication Technology: A Case Study in a Nigerian University. Contemporary Education, 2(1), 18-36.

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