The Effects of Attitude and Confidence on Technology Use
It is reasonable to assume that by enhancing preservice teachers’ computer expertise, positive attitudes and self-confidence about the use of computer technology in the classroom would increase. The results of a national survey of teachers who had completed their first year in the classroom indicated that the single course in technology required by most universities was not enough to achieve this outcome (Handler, 1993). LePage, Lewis, and Casella (1995) found that preservice teachers who had had more than one class of technology instruction had more confidence in their ability to teach special learners. However, preservice teachers who only had one class of technology instruction in their teacher education programs had confidence levels similar to those people with no instruction.
The 1999 study conducted by the National Center on Educational Statistics (NCES, 1999) reported that 38 percent of new teachers who had received more than eight hours of hands-on technology training did incorporate the use of technology into the curriculum; among those who had received fewer than eight hours of training, only 12 percent integrated technology. Additionally, Becker (1999) revealed that teachers who reported high levels of computer skills perceived the Internet to have greater value than did teachers who reported low to average computer skills. These results suggest that competence in using computer technology does affect attitude and confidence, but only after students and teachers become comfortable with technology or are exposed to ways to incorporate technology into classroom instruction. One introductory computer class or limited professional development opportunities do not provide the amount of training necessary to affect attitude and confidence levels.
In studies of yearlong programs, however, it is much more common for researchers to report positive effects (Wideen, Mayer-Smith, & Moon, 1998). Time enabled those in the program to accomplish more. Longer term programs were effective when the teacher educators maintained some consistent focus and message. In short-term interventions, there seemed to be a tendency for other elements of the program to interfere with or even nullify the intervention’s effects. This is what Gore and Zeichner (1991) refer to as the “hidden curriculum,” which emanates from the structured fragmentation of traditional programs. Grisham (1996) conducted a yearlong study of teachers’ use of electronic dialogue journals in a graduate program. She reported that the number of messages slowly increased over the course of the first semester as the teachers became adept at using the electronic mode of communication; the bulk of messages were sent during the second semester. She concluded from analysis of the teachers’ messages that they successfully learned to use the electronic forum, learned how to learn from it, and learned about other contexts in which electronic forums might be used effectively.
From “Electronic Dialoguing in a Preservice Reading Methods Course: A Yearlong Study” by Denise Johnson.
Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted July 2002