Primary teachers attitude towards integrating technology in classroom teaching / Widad Jaleel

Abstract:
The growth of technology has dramatically reformed the teaching and learning processes in primary education in the past several decades (Senaidi, 2009). Since the growth of power and capabilities of technology, it is triggering a change in the practice of teaching in the schools of Maldives. Integration of technology in teaching helps teachers to design teaching aids and to teach students technological skills and prepare them for work (Lynch, 2000). Transformations in the society is demanding for teachers to be technologically literate and skilled at integrating technology as a part of their teaching practice (Jones, 2011) This quantitative study sought to find out the primary teachers attitude towards integrating technology in grade 1- 5 classrooms of the public schools in Male'. This study was aimed to find out what kind of intervention can be made to change their attitude after the research. Total of 200 questionnaires were distributed to the schools. From the 200 questionnaire distributed 151 questionnaires with completed and returned back which was participant response rate of 75%.
The results demonstrated that teachers generally have a positive attitude towards integrating technology in teaching though some variations in attitude were found with regard to their teaching experience, professional development experiences, age and availability of resources. The positive relationships between the attitude and the variations among them suggest two major implications, i.e. the need to integrate technology in actual classroom teaching and to make sure that teachers are equipped with the necessary skills related to technology integrated teaching.