Teachers’ Attitudes toward Technology Integration in a Kazakhstani Secondary School

Abstract

The government of the Republic of Kazakhstan from 1997 started operating a systematic state policy for education. Many scholarly papers show that the success of the educational reform efforts depend not only on the ability of the government to supply all schools with ICT, but also on the ability to make teachers possess positive attitudes toward ICT integration. This study contributes to the existing knowledge by providing a current picture of the process of ICT integration in a Kazakhstani secondary school through the lens of the main facilitators of this process – teachers. This mixed-method study fills the research gap by exploring the role of teachers’ attitudes toward technology integration in school through examining the factors (self-confidence, knowledge, gender and age) that influence teachers’ ICT attitudes and analyzing the subsequent relationship between teachers’ attitudes and their students’ academic motivation. Findings show that teachers possess positive attitudes toward ICT in school mostly due to the advantages that technology offers such as distant learning and visualization of the material (3D programs). Moreover, the analysis shows that all four factors – confidence, knowledge, gender and age – have the potential to influence and change teachers’ attitudes toward technology. Interestingly, age and gender do not seem to have a direct influence on attitudes, confidence or knowledge. Rather, it is the bias towards age and gender that obstructs the integration of technology in school. In addition, the statistical analysis demonstrates that teachers’ attitudes toward ICT influence students’ academic motivation.