Teachers' Characteristics and Advanced Technology Proficiency

Abstract: The integration of teachers' use of technology in their instruction has been given increasing attention and emphasis. The purpose of this study was to discern the association between teachers' characteristics and advanced technology proficiency. The independent variables were gender, years of teaching experience, instructional subject, and number of teachers in each school. The dependent variable was the advanced technology assessment comprised of ten tasks. In addition, the most significant aspect of this study was the originality of data from the teachers' performance in the assessment of advanced technology proficiency conducted by Department of Education of Taichung City Government in Taiwan. The data indicated that teachers' characteristics were weakly associated with teachers' advanced technology proficiency. Finally, suggestions for the institution in charge of this assessment and for future research were provided. Introduction The innovative utilization of technology in the field of education has caught great attention, and has been given increasing emphasis by administration and teachers. Simultaneously, technology has replicated traditional instructional approaches of teaching and learning in many ways. It is gradually recognized that advances in technology have "the potential value of technology as a tool for teaching and learning by major actors in education" (Lawless & Pellegrino, 2007, p. 575). Hence, while today many have advocated for innovation in education, it is believed that primarily teachers are the driving force for themselves to genuinely reflect on how to transform those practices into reality in curricular design (Cuban, 1993, 2001). The purpose of this study was to discern the association between teachers' characteristics and advanced technology proficiency, which presented the four research questions as follows. 1. Is there any association between a teacher's gender and advanced information technology performance? 2. Is there any association between the individual teacher's years of teaching experience and advanced information technology performance? 3. Is there any association between the individual teacher's different instructional subject and advanced information technology performance? 4. Is there any association between the number of teachers in each school and advanced information technology performance? The significance of this paper is to investigate the relationship between individual characteristics and the technological proficiency level with the real assessment data. The source of the data was in particular contrast with what had been used in previous studies in Taiwan. Most previous studies were general discussions or policy advocacy papers of similar topics. Simple surveys were the common method to investigate teachers' self-evaluation or feedback after computer training sessions. Comparably, our research data was gathered from the assessment of teachers' advanced technology proficiency in the first semester of academic year 2007-2008 by the Education Network Center of Taichung at the Department of Education of Taichung City Government in Taiwan. For this reason, with teachers' actual levels of performance reflected in this assessment, it could potentially provide an alternative path to realize what is facilitating teachers' technological proficiency. Literature Review The Significance of Technology in Teacher Education Definitely, technology as a resource in education should include computers, specialized software, network communication systems, and relevant infrastructure. The teachers' technology learning practices aim to enhance their "collaborative work and communication, internet-based research, remote access to instrumentation, network-based transmission and retrieval of data, and other pedagogical programs" (Lawless & Pellegrino, 2007, p. 576). Nevertheless, the most essential concept above is how to integrate technology in supporting pedagogical goals routinely, seamlessly, and effectively. …