A STUDY OF COMPUTER SELF EFFICACY OF JUNIOR
COLLEGE LECTURERS
KEYWORDS: Computer
self efficacy, Qualification, Gender, Experience and Management.
ABSTRACT We are in
the 21st Century and the Cyber age Teachers’ role in using and
exploiting the technology professionally is the need of the hour. The teacher
driven by self interest and zeal to adopt new technologies, integrating them
into his classroom teaching, day to day academic activities will help him or
her to discharge his duties more efficiently with less effort and time saving.
Thus the teacher can have lot of time at his disposal for more creative
activities for the benefit of his/her students. The use of computers in education opens a new area of knowledge and offers
a tool that has the potential to change some of the existing educational
methods. The teacher is the key to the effective exploitation of this resource
in the educational system. As computer use continues to increase in society,
educators must also prepare for the use of computers within the classroom. This
involves all levels of education, including elementary schools. The role of the
elementary school teacher is evolving from that of a giver of information to
that of a facilitator of student learning. New technologies already exist to help
teachers complete that evolution.
INTRODUCTION
Computers offer exciting approaches to teaching that were not even dreamt
off, twenty years ago, but the extent to which the educational potential of
computer technology will be realized remains to be seen. Use of computers can
revolutionize teaching and learning and could bring advances that would improve
education dramatically. Ordinary students would make massive gains and bright
students could meet greater challenges. Wherever illiteracy is a problem, it
would be eliminated and handicapped students would have vast new vistas opened
to them.
Lecturer attitudes toward computer technology may be a significant factor
in the use of computers in education. Computer literate individuals will reap
greater benefits than their counterparts who lack that knowledge. To promote
computer literacy of both lecturers and students, the government is investing
considerably. To evaluate the impact of these investments and thereby help
ensure that the intended results are achieved, Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) literacy of students and teachers should be measured
periodically.
To use the ICT in teaching and learning process there are some basic ICT
related facilities that need to be available in colleges. Electricity is one
such facility. The level of availability of electricity is more in financially
sound private colleges, Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya vidyalayas than in
Govt. colleges run by State board.
Generally speaking, the linkage of telecommunication and computers is
behind the rapid developments in the field of ICT. To obtain information using
Internet, colleges should have a telephone connection. At present BSNL, Tata
Broadband, Airtel, Reliance and other companies are offering various packages as
per the requirement of the institutions. Internet facility and e-mail facility
are available in very small proportions of Govt colleges and also financially
unsound private colleges. Having a computer laboratory, a library and
books/magazines on ICT is useful to encourage students and lecturers to use ICT
in teaching and learning processes. Although many colleges have a library, only
few percent of colleges have a computer laboratory. Books/magazines on ICT are
available only in few percent of the corporate colleges. Development of
technological knowledge of teachers is very important in using ICT for making
revolutions in the learning and teaching process in classrooms. There is a
strong relationship between computer awareness and computer literacy if we observe
the trends in developed countries.
There is no significant relationship between computer literacy of lecturers
and availability of computers in colleges generally speaking. This is a cause
for concern. Having computers in colleges alone do not improve the computer
literacy of lecturers. Traditional teaching using blackboards and textbooks
perhaps is the dominant mode of teaching still and lecturers have little or no
time to use whatever available ICT facilities to enhance their own skills or to
teach.
It is a worldwide-accepted fact that the use of ICT in education can bring
about positive changes to the society, which requires infrastructure facilities
such as electricity, telephone, educational software, Internet facilities and
hardware such as computers, scanners, and multimedia projectors. The levels of
educational indicators such as enrollment rate, gender parity in education,
primary education completion rate etc is not very impressive in our country. This
emphasizes the need to improve quality of education and providing equal
education for all students across the country. ICT is influential in providing
equal education for all students. Even though all colleges do not have required
facilities, innovative thinking can bring solutions until the necessary
facilities are provided. For example, without expecting lecturers of rural
colleges to develop educational materials, standard materials can be prepared
with very user-friendly multimedia tools and copies burnt into compact disks
can be distributed to all relevant colleges. This will promote providing equal
education for all students. Covering these aspects, there is a need to prepare
an ICT policy for the Education system of the country to obtain the maximum
benefits of the rapid developments in ICT for teaching and learning process in
the class rooms. Computer technology has become a fundamental part of education
in India
and will likely be more so in the future. Unfortunately, Information Technology
innovation initiatives in India
are still characterized by a lack of research into possible options for
policies and strategies. There is also a noted lack in studies of the impact of
the actions that are taken. As there has been no evaluation, very little is
known about the extent of use of computers in teaching and learning, the
factors affecting the use of computers, or the effectiveness of the in-service
programs.
It is very important to examine college lecturers’
perceptions since research studies have found that lecturer perceptions of
computer and technology are closely related to their computer knowledge and
computer use. A key concern of this study is to determine the amount of college
lecturers’ awareness of the technological revolution. New data is presented
that reveals the perspectives and awareness levels of junior lecturers about
specific technologies, the role of technology in education, and how they see
the technological problems that basic education college system faces.
With the introduction of computers in colleges
lecturers have received a new tool to prepare their work and educate students.
Review
of Literature
Dr. Jerry Woodbridge
facilitates online education courses for University
of Phoenix and is an adjunct professor
at Jacksonville University. (2007) in her
investigation of Technology Integration as a Transforming Teaching Strategy
mentioned that the study of technology integration in the
classroom involved 42 observations in 16 classrooms, 20 interviews, and
27 responses to an online survey. Teachers were selected with a common
educational background in integrated learning and technological knowledge.
Beliefs and classroom teaching strategies of teachers who participated in Jacksonville University's Master of Arts in teaching
program were analyzed. Results revealed that technology integration varied
according to individual teaching beliefs, perceptions towards technology
innovations, and how the teacher practiced and put technology to work in the
classroom. Constructive teaching strategies were found in 50% of the classroom
observations. If technology integration is a first step towards transforming
teaching and learning, then understanding pedagogical possibilities can… assist
teachers in transforming their classroom practice. This study revealed that
technology integration varied according to individual teaching beliefs and
perceptions towards technology innovations. If technology integration is the
first level towards transforming teaching and learning, then understanding the
possibilities in the classroom can give researchers, teacher educators, and
professional development facilitators more knowledge to move teachers in this
direction.
K.B.S. Jyothi (2007) is a research associate, Pareto statistic labs, Hyderabad. “Impact of
Computer-based Learning on Students of Chemistry”. In this study undertaken to prepare a self
instructional module on the topic “chemical Bond” for class 9 students of
chemistry and compare the effectiveness of this self instructional module with
conventional teaching methods, the investigator finds that the self
instructional module prepared by a teacher through PowerPoint presentation has
immense positive impact on learning of chemistry.
Anil
Ambasana (2009) is an associate professor, department of education, Saurashtra University,
Rajkot. “Utilization
of Computer Technology in Remedial Instruction.” Only instruction would not serve the purpose of
learning. Diagnosis and remediation is also a basic need of curriculum
transaction. The question is how far technology could in this direction. A
study to check the effectiveness of computer assisted instruction program in
remedial instruction of unit light: Reflection of science an technology subject
of Grade-X was carried out on a class of 40 students. Computer –Assisted
Instruction Program in remedial task was found successful as the students were
able to over come the difficult points of the contents. They were able to
increase their achievement significantly.
Prakash (2009) has studied attitude of
school teachers towards computer self efficacy. He found that the teachers who
have undergone computer training have better computer self efficacy than the
others. This shows that all the other teacher have to be provided with computer
training to improve their skills in using computer.
Satish (2010) has studied attitude of lecturers towards computer
self efficacy. He found that the teachers who have undergone computer training
have better computer self efficacy than the others. This shows that all the
other teacher have to be provided with computer training to improve their
skills in using computer.
Scope
of the Study
The main
intention of the study is to find the relation of computer self efficacy of junior college lecturers with qualification,
gender, experience and management.
Objective
of the Study
To study
the influence of qualification, gender,
experience and management on the computer
self efficacy of junior college lecturers.
Tools for the Study
1. The
CSE scale was adopted in original form , developed by the Murphy, Christine A
Others (1989). The 32 item Likert – type scale was used to measure individuals’
perceptions of their capabilities regarding specific computer- related
knowledge and skills. Each statement is set against a five point scale of `Very little confidence’ , `Little confidence’,
`Some confidence’ , `High confidence’ , `Quiet a lot of Confidence’ . and
weights of 1,2,3,4 and 5 are given in that order for all the statements. The scores in this scale range
from 32 t o160 in the direction of the least favorable to the most favorable.
2. Personal data regarding the
students – 1. Lecture Name, 2. Qualification, 3. Gender, 4. Experience, 5. Management.
Data Collection
The
stratified random sampling technique was applied in the selection of the sample
for the investigation, consisted of 150 junior lecturers from Chittoor
district. This sample of 150 junior lecturers working in the junior colleges is
found to have the following sub - samples: (i) Male ( N = 75 ) , (ii) Female (
N = 75) , ( iii ) lecturers working in Government colleges ( N = 48 ) ,
(iv)lecturers working in Private colleges ( N = 52 ) , (v) lecturers working in
Aided colleges ( N = 50 ). The investigator personally visited colleges with
the permission of the principals of the colleges. The lecturers who attended to
the college on the day of collection of data are considered for the purpose of
the investigation. It was provided to the lecturers of the college. The lecturers were given necessary
instructions about the instruments and motivated to respond genuinely to all
the items. Self efficacy questionnaire
and personal data sheet were administered. The data on each variable in the
investigation is properly coded to suit for computer analysis. The analysis was
carried out on the basis of objectives of the investigation and hypotheses
formulated by employing appropriate statistical techniques. The inferential
statistical technique ‘t’ test and ‘F’ test was employed to test hypotheses.
The obtained numerical results are adumbrated by graphical representations.
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