Modern Technology in Geography Education—Attitudes of Pre-Service Teachers of Geography on Modern Technology

Abstract

In this study, we focus on teachers’ attitudes to compare and evaluate their ability and readiness to implement technology education in geography lessons. First, the lack of suitable measuring instruments for our intent was identified, and we thus attempted to develop the Modern Technology Attitude Index (MTAI) for remedy. An exploratory factor analysis helped to identify three distinguishable dimensions that depict areas of intimidation (INT), loss of control (LOC), and benefits and easement (BAE), with or through modern technology. The scales were then applied to German university students (n = 357). As a result, the pre-service geography teachers (n = 72) showed higher scores on the affinity scale than on the two aversion scales. Their subject-specific interest correlated negatively with intimidation and positively with the perceived benefits and easements of modern technology, while the perceived loss of control showed no significant correlation. This allows for the conclusion that the subject’s technology-related interest has an influence on cognitive and behavioral attitudes, while this is not the case for affective ones. Further, there are indications that the much-discussed gender gap in technology topics might particularly be related to people’s affective attitudes, while cognitive and behavioral dimensions seem not to be affected. Differing results in other studies on whether the gender gap still exists or not could be due to the fact that, in addition to growing social awareness and a generational change, the measuring tools used may have not yet been able to depict a sufficiently diverse range of attitudes.