Teachers’ Perceptions of Computer Needs

The success of any innovative computer program in attaining its goals and objectives depends, ultimately, upon the support of the teachers. Based upon the premise that teacher support for computer programs, both inservice and school-based, will be increased if they are perceived as focusing on priority needs, 92 teachers were asked to rate and then rank their own perceived computer needs and those of their own students. The general trend was that teachers gave high ratings to those applications that allow users to retrieve, process and present information by computer. Applications in which the computer is used as an instructional or learning tool were given much lower ratings. Word processing was ranked as the primary need for both teachers and students. The teachers ranked using the computer to perform administrative tasks as their second priority. They ranked the use of a computer as a data source as their students’ second priority. Programming skills were uniformly rated as low priorities. The teachers’ priorities have serious implications for the design and content of computer programs and their mode of introduction if the schools are to produce computer literate graduates.