Teachers' Perceptions of the Effectiveness of ICT-Competence Training

Over several decades the major thrust in the school sector of countries across the world has been the search for ways in which teachers can be convinced that ICT should be an integral part of their teaching strategy. Various approaches have been tried including the dissemination of good practice and the investment in infrastructure and equipment. Prominent among the strategies are training programmes designed to raise skill levels and foster positive attitudes to computers among teachers. This paper takes the latter of these and considers teachers' perceptions of computers and one specific national initiative, i. e., the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) training for all UK teachers. This initiative, costing British Pound 230 million overall, provided training in all four countries of the UK. In the research reported here, a sample of 900 teachers from primary (5-11 years) and secondary (11-16/18years) schools in Northern Ireland was surveyed and yielded over 450 responses. The survey sought their views on a number of educational technology-related issues and this paper deals specifically with their responses on items relating to NOF training. The data included narrative commentaries from the teachers on their experiences with an attitude scale that allowed comparisons of the different types of respondents, e.g., male/female and secondary/primary. A selection of the results is presented in this paper along with a discussion of their implications for policy and practice. In summary, the results suggest that NOF training has had a measure of success in increasing teachers' confidence in using computers in their teaching but that this has been tempered by a considerable degree of negative reaction to form and content of the training.