Socio Economic Status and Various Demographical Variables Determining the Attitude of Secondary School Teachers towards Information Technology

INTRODUCTION

In the modern era, technology has turned into an Integral piece of individuals‘ lives. The advance applications of technology influence the social, economic and social aspects of life. Even, the field of education is not an exception. Technology opens the vast opportunities of job in the field of education. Interactive technologies encourage the teaching-learning process and increasingly online world. Integrating technology into teaching-learning transaction has been changing the teacher's job from being the traditional Sage on the Stage to likewise being a Guide as an afterthought. Information technology assists to promote opportunities of knowledge that share throughout the world. Information technology helps both the teachers as well as the students to have up-to-date information and knowledge about the effective teaching-learning process. Haag (1988) suggested that information technologies are useful to offer the information at the time whoever required. Technology is most persuasive when integrated with educational modules and evaluation. It can have most noteworthy impact when integrated into educational programs to accomplish clear and quantifiable educational goals as well as provides the imaginative opportunities for teaching- learning, and induced advances in research, evaluating the structure of education. Review of literature shows that advance technologies and demand of modern era of education elevate the positive attitude of teachers to use new educational technologies while teaching (Foley & Ojeda, 2008; Karagiorgim & Charalambous, 2006). Numerous nations are emphasis on information technologies in educational practices (Hare, 2007; Moonen, 2008; Tilya, 2008) to providing ICT infrastructure in secondary and primary schools (Gaible and Burns, 2005). Nyarusy (2006) found that in Tanzaina, teachers of private secondary schools focused on the application of ICT in teaching and learning. Afamasaga-Wright (2008) found that most of the secondary school teacher in Samoa used internet to search information for teaching. Gruich (2004) also revealed that teacher passion about the helpfulness of technology and integration of technology in instruction. Similarly Singh (2012) found a close relationship between quality of education and quality of teachers with positive attitude towards information technology. do not influenced by Gender, age and ethnicity of the teachers. Further it was also found a relationship between teacher‘s skill levels and the different dimension of technology integration in education. Green (2006) explored that instructor efficacy was significantly identified with teacher‘s attitudes towards computer as their best practices, computer helpfulness, and computer efficacy as well as a negative relationship between educator efficacy and computer anxiety support that had more elevated amounts of confidence while teaching practice via use of computer. The present paper is aimed to study (1) the relationship between socio economic status and attitude towards information technology of secondary school teachers; and (2); to find the difference in attitude towards information technology of secondary school teachers in relation to socio economic status and various demographic factors. Research Method: Descriptive survey method was employed for the present study.

Attitude Scale towards Information Technology for Teachers by Nasrin and Fatima Islahi (2012) used for the present study. The scale is 7 point Likert scale, having 30 statement consisted in 4 factors naming: Impact of Information Technology; Usefulness for students; Productivity for teaching; Teacher‘s Interest and Acceptance. The scale has high internal consistency is 0.89 and good face and content validity.

Analysis and Interpretation of the Data: The data was analyzed by employed SPSS-21. The age range of the secondary school teachers was 22 to 56 years and mean and SD was 17.28 ± 4.23 years.

Table 2 shows that a moderate significant relationship between attitude of secondary school teachers towards information technology and socio economic status (r=0.67, p<0.01) which indicates that socio economic status associated with the attitude towards learn, use sources of information technology by teachers for teaching learning process. It is observed that the teachers encompass high and upper high socio economic status have different technologies as recourse of information i.e. multimedia, computer, internet, email etc. that they can easily assess those for teaching process. A result by Straker, Pollock, Zubrick, and Kurinczuk (2006) that Computer use was also significantly related to socio-economic is support the existing finding.

Table 3 is showing significant difference between information technology of different groups of teachers i.e. gender (F = 1.44, p = .032); and locale of residence (F =1.30, p =0.092) significant at 0.05 level, whereas, nature of job (F = 1.87, p = .001);

that type of school (F=1.06, p= 0.364); and teaching experience (F= 1.19, p = 0.181) of secondary school teachers do not significantly differ on the scores of attitude towards information technology neither 0.05 level nor 0.01 level of significance. Angadi (2014) also found a significant gender difference in secondary school teachers‘ attitudes towards information and communication technology. It is observed from the above table that gender, locality, job, socio economic status and age of secondary school teachers influence their attitude to use information technology devices i.e. internet, telecommunicate services that helps to develop their skills and knowledge to improve quality of teaching and education. Secondary school teachers believed that information technology makes their teaching process worthy and significantly fulfill the demands of education as well as helps to be a better teacher with the use of technology as an instructional device. This finding is supported by the result of Chen and Chang (2006) who found that pre- school teachers and teacher candidates take education for using new technologies determined and improve the education.

It can be concluded in the context of the existing study that different factors determine the attitude of secondary school teachers towards information technology. The findings of the study show a relevance to both teachers and the educational policy-makers. They should Eliminating and/ or minimize the barriers to use information technologies and facilitate teaching learning process as virtual learning community. In nutshell, it can be say that knowledge and use of information technology also has found that the knowledge of ICT will be vastly helpful in the progress of educational institutions as well as both teacher and learners to meet the International standards of global education.

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Research Scholar, Department of Education, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo, Punjab