“It Just Takes so Much Time!” A Study of Teachers’ Use of ICT to Convey Relevance of Mathematical Content

Abstract

This paper reports on a component of a study which aims to determine how ICT, and in particular some of the technology funded as part of Australian government’s DER (Digital Education Revolution) program, is used by teachers in the state of New South Wales. The study looks in particular at whether technology is used to incorporate real-world relevance into mathematics lessons. The main finding of this component of the study, an online survey of teachers (n = 102), is that teachers perceive time to be a significant barrier for the incorporation of both ICT and real-world connections into their practice. Also, although the majority of teachers did not see using ICT as one of the most important means to convey relevance, there was a significant correlation between teachers who did find it important and those who use technology regularly with their students by posing higher order tasks.