Modeling perspectives of secondary school teachers of Sri Lanka towards the integration of ICT in the instructional process

Abstract

It is arguable whether the huge investment made on ICT in the school sector of Sri Lanka has been fruitful in terms of the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the instructional process. Numerous reasons may account for poor teacher involvement while the review of literature has indicated that perspectives of teachers in this context could be one of them. The purpose of this study was to model the perspectives of secondary school teachers regarding the integration of ICT in their instructional process. The research methodology adopted is Interactive Qualitative Analysis, which is an analytical framework for qualitative research and is formulated to make a systems approach to the problem under study, to model the perspectives of teachers about the integration of ICT in the classroom. Through focus groups and individual interviews, ten affinities: Principal, ICT Laboratory, Teacher-in-charge of ICT Laboratory, Student, Curriculum (Non-ICT), ICT Knowledge, Pedagogical ICT knowledge, Time, Non-ICT Teacher and Professional Development Program emerged to describe the teacher perspectives. Study of pair-wise influential relationships of the affinities identified the Principal as a primary driver and the Non-ICT Teacher and the Student as primary outcomes. The ICT Laboratory, the Teacher-in-charge of ICT Lab and the ICT Knowledge were the secondary drivers whereas the Professional Development Program, the Curriculum (Non-ICT), and the Pedagogical ICT knowledge were the secondary outcomes revealed.