Teachers and Technology: A Complicated Relationship

Abstract

AbstractAlthough technology is present in most classrooms and many countries have made strong recommendations for ICT integration in schools and teachers’ practices, a great number of teachers do not use ICT in their educational activities. Research has provided theories and models that explain the consistency of the relationship between attitudes and behavior. These theories converge to identify common aspects that foster technology integration.We now propose an “ICT Skills Towards Technology Use” (ISTTU) model to evaluate the impact of “ICT Knowledge” over “Intention to Use ICT” (IUICT). Based on previously validated questionnaires, we have developed a questionnaire that was applied to a sample of teachers from the vocational stream of secondary education in Portugal. The data was tested and evaluated using Structural Equation Modeling techniques and we concluded that “ICT Knowledge” is a good predictor of the “IUICT” and that “teaching area” has an impact on “Intention to Use ICT”. We also concluded that “gender” and “Learning through ICT” have no significant impact on IUICT. The ISTTU model shows that fostering the development of ICT skills (increasing “ICT Knowledge”) will develop the “intention to use technologies with students”.