The Relationship between Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Integration and Teachers’ Self-efficacy Beliefs about ICT

The integration of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in teaching and learning is becoming almost obligatory given the imperatives of education in many countries in the world. All teachers have a challenging job, but integrating the tools for ICT in teaching and learning provides additional challenges, especially for secondary teachers not exposed to technology. In this paper we explore a possible relationship between teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs pertaining to their own level of competence and their attitudes towards technology adoption. Questionnaires were used to determine teachers’ perceptions of their competence and factors that relate to their attitudes. Their responses were analysed using a statistical package (SPSS) and social cognitive theory was used as a framework to explain human learning in terms of motivation, behavioural and environmental factors. Some implications for professional development programmes are then suggested. This paper determined the perceptions of educators with respect to attitude towards ICT, attributes of computers and their competency levels of using computers. These perceptions were shown to relate to educator's self-efficacy beliefs. We suggest that the programmes for teachers and pre-service teachers need to change in order to incorporate ICT into the teaching, since teachers’ perceptions of the relative advantage and compatibility of ICT were positively correlated to educators’ attitudes towards computers. This could be used as a spring board to increase their self-efficacy about ICT and hence adopt ICT in teaching and learning.