Date of Award

1982

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Abstract

A survey on attitudes and perceptions toward computer technology was conducted among 464 teachers in five randomly chosen parishes in the State of Louisiana. In each parish one elementary school, one junior high or middle school, and one high school were randomly chosen. The sample included every teacher in each of the chosen schools. A total of 369 (79.5 percent) surveys were returned. The purposes of the study were to delineate, analyze, and document the reasons that teachers may avoid using computer technology. Lack of opportunity, lack of assistance, and lack of equipment and materials appeared to be the primary obstacles to teacher use of computers in schools. Findings included the following: (1) Teachers had generally positive attitudes toward computers. (2) A positive relationship appeared to exist between the educational degree possessed by a teacher and the perceptions the teacher had of computers. (3) Age, gender, teaching level, and teaching field did not appear to be significant factors in the predisposition of teachers to learn about computers. (4) A significant relationship appeared to exist between perceptions of negative factors surrounding computers and perceptions of the usefulness of computers. (5) Sixty-three percent of the teachers wanted to learn about computers at their own paces, and over 94 percent wanted to learn using the equipment and materials they will use in their jobs. In-school assistance was not available for 87.7 percent of the teachers in the sample. The following recommendations were made: (1) That individual computer training programs be made available to all teachers as part of their inservice training. (2) That computer equipment be made available to individual teachers engaged in the training programs. (3) That computer expertise be developed by teachers at various levels. (4) That software packages be developed to allow teachers to utilize classroom computer equipment while building computer skills. (5) That research be conducted to determine needs of individual teachers regarding content and emphasis of programs and depth of computer expertise.

Pages

126

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_disstheses.3785

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