Incorporating ICT in Teaching and Learning Processes during a Systemic Reform of ICT Implementation – Validation of a Questionnaire for Teachers

Author(s):

Orit Avidov Ungar(presenting / submitting)Alisa Amir

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

16. ICT in Education and Training

Format:

Paper

Session Information

16 SES 07 A, The Implementation of ICT in Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-09

17:15-18:45

Room:

3005. [Main]

Chair:

Stefanie A. Hillen

Contribution

Proposal Information

Adjusting the educational system to the 21^st century is one of the greatest reforms conducted in schools in Israel, while assuming that this serves as a stimulus to innovative pedagogy, one that creates methods for improvement of teaching and learning. The adjustment of the educational system to the 21^st century concerns several key components influencing the quality of teaching-learning-evaluation processes, including learning in a digital environment, encouraging computer and information literacy (CIL), and fostering literacy in a digital environment (Koberg, Detienne & Heppard, 2003). As part of the Israeli Ministry of Education's reform, a national ICT program was launched in the year 2014; the program promotes ICT processes in schools with the purpose of turning them into ICT organizations, while emphasizing innovative pedagogy and developing digital literacy. These schools enjoy ICT services including a speedy Internet connection, digital content, remote as well as close technical support, and benefits for the administrator serving as an ICT and pedagogical support coordinator (Ministry of Education, 2015).

Despite the progress made in incorporating the computer into education, there still remains some discomfort stemming from a serious gap between the concept of ICT reform in the schools and the reality in actual fact (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010). Based on this discomfort, this research examined the source of the rift and its main causes. For this purpose, a unique questionnaire was developed and tested on a large sample of teachers in Israel. In the article, we will present the questionnaire's development process, its validity and reliability.

Research Goals and Questions

The research has three main goals: To propose a questionnaire for the evaluation of ICT implementation in teaching amongst teachers in non-primary schools, to examine the validity and reliability of the questionnaire, and extract key elements characterizing ICT implementation in education. In this article, we will focus on the first two goals.

The developed questionnaire is based on five different indices, expressing the teachers' perceptions with regard to the implementation of ICT in teaching and learning processes in the school. The examined indices in the questionnaire are:

Skillfulness with ICT instruments
Use of ICT instruments in teaching and learning processes
Use of ICT instruments in evaluation processes in teaching
Attitudes towards the change of using ICT to change teaching
Perception of self-capability with regard to using ICT instruments for teaching

With this questionnaire, the main research question will be examined – in what way does each of the five indices influence the implementation of ICT in teaching among teachers in Israel.

Method

Methodology The developed questionnaire includes 34 statements concerning the five indices of incorporating ICT instruments in teaching. The first three indices concern direct aspects of implementation and use of ICT instruments in teaching, while the last two indices concern viewpoints on implementation of ICT instruments in teaching. The research sample was comprised of 391 high school teachers in Israel. Nearly all the teachers have had an academic education. About half of the research participants (48.7%) have a bachelor's degree, the other half (44.6%) have a master's degree and the rest have a doctorate degree (2.3%) or have not had an academic education (4.4%). The teachers' seniority ranges from teachers with up to 43 years of seniority to new teachers with no seniority. The questionnaire development process included several stages. The first stage was theoretical in character and in it, we focused on analyzing the research instruments used to measure and evaluate the use of technology in schools (Koehler & Mishra, 2005). This prior stage's outcomes showed that most of said instruments focus mainly on the knowledge aspect (meaning, TPACK) and aspects of the teachers' technological capabilities, as well as their attitudes towards using the ICT instruments in general. One of the main motifs that kept repeating in these researches was the fact that their premise was measuring the teachers' potential use of the ICT instruments or their "theoretical" capabilities with the ICT instruments. We found that these instruments lack reference to the way the teachers use the ICT instruments in actual fact, when practicing teaching, or to what extent the ICT instruments are implemented in the teachers' teaching methods. This issue is the reason for developing the questionnaire presented in this research. In the second stage, the questionnaire was submitted for the evaluation of three experts in ICT instrument implementation in education. In the third stage, the questionnaire was given to a sample of ten teachers to test the clarity and coherence of the questions. According to the experts' and teachers' comments and suggestions, the questionnaire was corrected to create the final version of the questionnaire.

Expected Outcomes

Findings and Conclusion The final questionnaire version includes two parts. This division was necessary since the assumption is that the teachers know the technical aspects of ICT instruments, but it isn't clear if the teachers incorporate these instruments in their teaching, and if they do, how and to what extent do they do so. Therefore, the first part of the questionnaire deals with the direct aspects of implementation of ICT instruments in teaching methods in terms of skill, creating content and evaluation, while the second part is about attitudes of the teachers regarding the incorporation of these instruments in their teaching methods. The final questionnaire version includes 34 statements regarding the five indices of ICT instrument implementation in teaching, which have been tested quantitatively in order to examine their reliability, by using the Cronbach α index. The validity of the various indices' content was thereafter tested by a validating factor analysis, based on a principal components analysis with a rotation of the variance (Varimax) and normalization (Kaiser). Furthermore, the questionnaire included a general section concerning the background characteristics of the participants. The research findings shows that the questionnaire is valid and reliable, thereby allowing it to serve as a research tool with which the extent of ICT instrument use in teachers' teaching methods, as well as their attitudes concerning incorporation of said instrument in teaching, may be examined. Researches show (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010) that the beliefs of teachers in regard to what is considered a successful combination of ICT in teaching and the value of technology in teaching processes in general, affect the actual behaviors of the teachers when incorporating ICT in teaching and learning in schools (Ertmer et al., 2012).

References

References Ertmer, P. A. & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. T. (2010). Teacher Technology Change, How Knowledge, Confidence, Beliefs, and Culture Intersect. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 42(3), 255-284. Ertmer, P. A., Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. T., Sadik, O., Sendurur, E. & Sendurur, P. (2012). Teacher Beliefs and Technology Integration Practices: A Critical Relationship. Computers & Education, 59(2), 423-435. Koberg, C. S., Detienne, D. R. & Heppard, K. A. (2003). An Empirical Test of Environmental, Organizational, and Process Factors Affecting Incremental and Radical Innovation. The Journal of High Technology Management Research, 14(1), 21-45. Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2005). What Happens when Teachers Design Educational Technology? The Development of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 32(2), 131-152. Ministry of Education (2015). Adapting the Education System to the 21st Century, The National Plan. http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/MadaTech/englishsifria/AdaptingtheEducationSystemtothe21Century/Vision_and_rationale.htm

Author Information

Orit Avidov Ungar (presenting / submitting)

Achva Academic College, The Open University, Israel

Alisa Amir

Achva Academic College

Education and Language

RISHON LE ZION

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