engleski

Teacher Education Students’ attitudes towards the use of information and communication technology: Some Implications for Teacher Education in Croatia

In contemporary teacher education, application of new technologies and recognition of collaborative learning in a technology environment have a high relevance. In this paper, we provide both theoretical insights on information and communication technology (ICT) use in higher education and present results of a survey of future teachers’ attitudes towards technology use in teacher education. The aim of the research is to determine how teacher education students perceive the usefulness and ease of use of new technologies, in respect of the study programme and study year. In addition, we present findings of the analysis of teacher education programmes and syllabi in order to provide guidelines for preparing teacher education students for effective use of technology. A literature review provides data indicating the potential of ICT to increase access to learners, facilitate students’ learning, improve quality of teaching and improve the cost-effectiveness of universities (Bates & Sangra, 2011). Recent studies on ICT use in teacher education focus on approaches which are associated with increases in teacher education students' technological knowledge (Polly, Mims, Shepherd, & Inan, 2010) and potential areas of educational technology knowledge that influence students’ beliefs about technology integration (Abbitt, 2011). In this survey, the scale on students’ attitudes towards use of ICT used by Edmunds, Thorpe and Conole (2012) was translated into Croatian and adopted for use. The adaptation was based on the translation/back translation methodology. A written survey was administered to 162 teacher education students at the University of Split, Croatia. A confirmatory factor analysis was done and it confirmed the anticipated scale structure. The results of inferential analysis indicate that there are significant differences in students' attitudes towards use of ICT in relation to study programme and study year. The students surveyed belong to a generation of people who grew up with technology. So the identified difference in students’ attitudes could be attributed to differences among study programmes and teaching approaches at different departments of the same university. Findings on differences in teacher education students' attitudes towards technology served as a guideline for further analysis of teacher education programmes and syllabi. The analysis of teacher education programmes provided additional information on preparing teachers for effective technology use and on curricular barriers to integrating educational technology within programmes.

teacher education; ICT; teacher attitudes

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