PERCEPTIONS ABOUT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION FROM SCHOOL TEACHERS IN LATIN AMERICA

1. PERCEPTIONS ABOUT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION FROM SCHOOL TEACHERS IN LATIN AMERICA Silvia C. García

2. The study • In 2010 the Cisneros Foundation and the Actualización de Maestros en Educación (AME) Program located in Venezuela, delivered -for a second time- a five months course named “Apropiación de la Tecnología en la Escuela Básica”for Latin American primary school teachers, to promote the use of Information Technologies (IT) in schools. • Identical pre and post-test questionnaires were administered to measure cognitive achievements as well as changes in perceptions (beliefs) about technology use in education. • This study reports the results of the pre-test (teacher’s perceptions), and the preliminary analysis of qualitative data collected during course administration.

3. Participants of the Course • Participants were: 1) teachers working in a Latin American educational institution (preferably at primary or secondary school levels) registered in the AME Program; and 2) teachers with basic computer skills (e-mail use, Internet browsing, Word processor).

4. Participants of the Course (Cont.) The average age of the participants was 40 years and the average number of years of working experience in education was 14.

5. Perceptions were operationalized using the main theoretical constructs of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis, 2003). • Items were content-validated by the facilitators of the course who checked the operationalization against the relevant content domain for the constructs. The test

6. The test • The test measured: • Perceived usefulness: degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance. • Effort Expectancy: • Perceived ease of use: degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort • Complexity: degree to which a system is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use • Facilitating conditions: degree to which an individual believes that an organizational and technological infrastructure exists to support the use of the system.

7. Respondents • 524 of the 599 participants answered the pre-test.

8. Performance Expectancy: Perceived usefulness Totally disagree (1) Totally agree (5) • Teachers perceive that technology is useful for teaching, student assessment, student learning and for communicating with peers and friends. • 57.9% agreed that they learn better in a traditional course. • 55.9% disagreed that face to face interaction is more effective than computer mediated interaction • 85.9% would use the computer for assessing students’ learning • 93.9% disagreed with the statement that computers are bad for student´s learning. • 79.6% disagreed with the statement that computers make school projects more expensive and difficult to complete.

9. Expected Effort Expectancy: perceived ease of use and complexity Totally disagree (1) Totally agree (5) • Perceived ease of use: 86.8% disagreed with the statement that using the computer for teaching would require extra time and effort. The tendency to disagreement is less clear with the perceived difficulty to learn to use the computer. • Complexity: 42.4% of the respondents believe that they would still need expert assistance after completing their training program. 49.8% believe that teaching using traditional methods is not easier than teaching with technology.

10. Facilitating conditions Totally disagree (1) Totally agree (5) • 77.1% of the respondents disagree with the statement that parents and peers would not be interested in learning to use the computer. • 70.2% have a clear idea about what are the general expectations others have about their use of computers in the school. • 65% believe that even in conditions where administrative support does not exist, they can do something to incorporate the use of computer in their schools. • 92.6% do not perceive poor technological infrastructure as a barrier to pursue learning. • 93.5% disagree with the statement that internet resources and computer tools are not applicable to the courses they teach.

11. Addingtotheseresults • To better understand the test results, qualitative data collected from two main sources (forum discussions and students’ e-mails) were analyzed. • Forum discussions were used to gain a wider contextual understanding of learners’ experiences with technology in their own school environments. • E-mails revealed much of the learners’ individual expectations about technology use in their schools.

12. What are the uses that teachers would give to IT in education? • Teaching-Learning process: They see no limitations to apply IT to any of the courses they teach. Some activities need to be performed face to face, especially with younger populations. • Access to Learning Resources: IT give access to relevant information for teachers and students; access to multiple educational resources and learning opportunities. • Collaboration: IT facilitate collaborative work and learning from others. • Communication: IT allow for direct and effective communication with students. • Life-long learning: ITsupport and facilitate life-long learning and self-education.

13. What do teachers expect as a final result if they use IT for teaching? • More enjoyable, motivating and interesting teaching and learning. • Modernization of educational practices. • Diversification of educational content and practices to attend specific needs. • Improvement of communication with students and development of new ways of relating to them. • More inclusive education and social integration in the classroom.

14. How much effort teachers feel they must put into learning to use IT and to actually use IT? • Learning to use IT is “a challenge” that has to be taken to become “better teachers”. • They do not talk about the effort to learn, but about the effort to commit to activities that require so much time. • Age is an important issue. They think that children and young people adopt technology more easily than older people, for whom fear of trying new things becomes an obstacle to learning.

15. Do teachers perceive that people that influence their behavior (or are important to them) value their use of IT? • Teachers express interest to learn about IT to close the knowledge gap they perceive they have with their students. • They consider that as teachers they are bound to change so as not be left behind. • They see themselves as change agents and as professionals whose work is affected by technology development. • They believe that they have an important role in innovating educational practices.

16. How do teachers perceive that external and internal conditions affect their decision to use IT? • They think that training programs are still insufficient to address the growing demand in the region and that manycourses fail to teach issues that actually relate to their teaching practices. • The major issues raised were costs of technology, very high student/computer ratios, technical limitations (maintenance, problems of connection to Internet, old equipment), lack of interest fromschool administrators, teachers’ resistance to change and poor training, being this last issue the one that raised the major concern.

17. What is the general perception that teachers have about IT in education? • IT are a set of technological facilities that usually include: the computer, connectivity to Internet and Web tools and resources. • These are “innovative” tools that help to overcome “the monotony” imposed by “outdated teaching methods” and represent … “the replacement of obsolete methods for more modern ones…” • IT are a gateway to unlimited information, countless educational resources and new sources of knowledge. • IT may have a strong positive impact on the quality of education, but may become a problem if used without adult supervision. • Technology development may lead to more inequality in Latin American countries where opportunities for access to IT are not equally distributed.

18. Do they intend to use IT in their future practice? • Even though they seem enthusiastic about the idea of using IT in their future practice, the final decision may be greatly influenced by absence of facilitating conditions (mainly, not having the required knowledge).

19. Summary • Participants conveyed that IT are useful and bring innovation to the teaching process. • The flaws perceived in teacher training programs were of the most frequently mentioned issues that affect technology adoption. • Their perception is that their schools lack the optimal conditions for technology integration. However, they tend to see themselves as individuals that could contribute to create the required conditions.

20. Final Remarks • Special attention must be given to offering programs that: • raise teachers’ technology expertise levels and, • develop competences for managing technology based programs in schools. • The characteristics of the population and their motivations to learn to use technology must be considered for the interpretation of these results. • Further research should lead to study the effects of moderating factors on intention to use and to analyze technology usage patterns in Latin American schools.