Information Technology in Developing Nations: a study of lecturers attitudes and expertise with reference to Turkish teacher education

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1 Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education ISSN: X (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: Information Technology in Developing Nations: a study of lecturers attitudes and expertise with reference to Turkish teacher education Eralp H. Altun To cite this article: Eralp H. Altun (1996) Information Technology in Developing Nations: a study of lecturers attitudes and expertise with reference to Turkish teacher education, Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, 5:3, , DOI: / To link to this article: Published online: 11 Aug Submit your article to this journal Article views: 95 View related articles Citing articles: 3 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at Download by: [ ] Date: 15 December 2015, At: 18:38

2 Journal of Information Technology for Teacher Education, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1996 Information Technology in Developing Nations: a study of lecturers' attitudes and expertise with reference to Turkish teacher education ERALP H. ALTUN University of Exeter, United Kingdom ABSTRACT This paper reports a survey of lecturers from six Turkish teacher education institutions. The study specifically aimed to investigate the fundamental issues, concerns, and challenges of implementing information technology (IT) in teacher education. The survey consisted of four sections. The first section of the survey comprised several aspects of IT familiarity, namely the use of twelve common IT applications. The second section investigated benefits of IT to lecturers and teachers seeking to reveal how teacher educators view the role of new instructional technologies for teaching and learning. The third section dealt with the factors which are vital to implementing IT in teacher education, and the final part drew attention to the issues affecting employment and retainment of competent lecturers in teacher education. Most lecturers had a rather positive image and enthusiasm towards the use of IT in teacher training, despite a lack of experience. Recommendations are made for future strategies in Turkey on the basis of this survey and the associated literature. Introduction There is no need to emphasise that developing countries should use information technology (IT) as Hawkridge (1991) points out "information technology is the latest creative gale of destruction sweeping industrial countries, which are educating people to deal with and benefit from it. Developing countries cannot shelter from this gale". This means new information technologies which offer enormous potential to improve effectiveness of services in society such as health, education, economics, politics, are replacing old classical technologies, and bringing fundamental changes into all aspects of human life. In industry, for instance, penetration 185

3 ERALP H. ALTON of most sectors by the creation of new jobs and the development of less energy consuming technologies, as well as the use of new materials in manufacturing, have demanded adjustments in organisations and structures throughout the economy. Moreover, information itself has become more than ever a source of power and control in the modern world. As these challenges storm even the industrialised nations, developing countries have no other choice than to follow by implementing new technologies in their public services. In industrial societies, one of the basic tensions of modern education systems is the relationship between curriculum matters and the needs of society. In such societies, there is no doubt that the advent of new technologies will intensify the pace of change. The degree of the implementation of such changes is, and should be, the main consideration regarding schooling. In several countries the quality of education has been impoverished in recent years due mainly to overcrowded classrooms, lack of appropriate as well as sufficient courseware, and lack of resource opportunity for the self-development of teachers. Teachers have faced difficulties in following the advances in their subject area, and criticised the inadequateness of teaching and learning methods used in schools. Furthermore, teaching as a future career has not been highly regarded, particularly in developing societies, since the majority of most able people have chosen professions in industry or business which offer better payment and additional social facilities compared with the educational sector. In a study examining the ability range of Turkish students who selected teaching as a career, Murray (1988) shows that students with above average ability do not enter teacher training. She also states that "with fewer persons entering teaching, and fewer capable students selecting teaching as a career, the nation places its most valuable resource - its children - in less than ideal circumstances". This flow of more competent people to other professions and to the private sector may eventually lower the quality of education. This leads to a further disadvantage for the educational sector relying on the academically low achievers to implement the increasingly complex and highly demanding processes of IT and its introduction in education. From this point of view, it would seem that the pre-service and in-service teacher training courses must be well organised and designed in order to ease the adaptation of new information technologies in schools. Teachers should be introduced to these new technologies effectively during training courses, and subsequently supported by available resources and technical assistance throughout their teaching life in schools. However, since there are short term or some long term courses for teachers in the use of new information technologies, the question of preparing student-teachers to use IT applications professionally in the classroom has become a complex process with regard to what should be taught and what should not 186

4 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION What are the particular obstacles for developing nations to adopting new information technologies into their systems? These countries may be able to purchase necessary hardware and associated technologies, but this is only one aspect of such a fundamental process of change. Without trained personnel they will not be able to use this technology effectively. It has already been found that computers are often locked in rooms waiting for professional users or trainees. New information technology, which is relatively quite expensive for developing states, will be quickly out of date, and replacing it with newer systems will not be easy with limited financial resources. Therefore, alongside the training of school teachers which is at the heart of innovation, the training of policy-makers, computer personnel, and academics should also be considered. Secondly, most developing states will not be able to use the software packages produced by developed countries due to differences of language and culture. They have to adapt or develop their own software, which requires highly skilled programming staff. The other issues include providing opportunity for educational computing for all, regardless of gender and/or region (rural and urban); provision of hardware and software for all schools; establishment of computer networks nationwide; recognition of social problems caused by computers; provision of resources; management; developing policies, and special educational needs. The use of IT in developing countries to improve the quality and opportunity of education for all has attracted other nations to use this technology as a tool to solve increasing difficulties of educating their citizens. For countries like Turkey, Mclsaac (1992) states that: this sudden and universal access to information will have profound effects on the educational system in the twenty-first century. It will challenge the most basic pedagogic assumptions of a society struggling to keep up with the challenges of educating a rapidly growing population in a developing economy. Despite a large number of problems that have been faced during this process, the rapid advances and wide-spread use of new informatics in the developed world is believed to have produced positive implications for the process of learning and teaching across the curriculum. Because the Turkish education system is highly centralised under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of National Education, all educational policies and decisions are made by the same institution. Several projects on implementing IT in education have been going on, which may bring some fundamental changes into the education system. The large number of issues - social, economic and cultural - within the boundary of the innovation plan have delayed the adaption of IT into the system. Regrettably, the government plan to put one million computers in the schools by the year 2000 (Mclsaac, 1992) was later withdrawn due to the financial cutbacks. But the use of IT in the classrooms is still quite poor, since there is lack of technical support, lack of 187

5 ERALP H. ALTUN hardware and software, insufficient training of teachers, fear of technology, inappropriateness of the educational model, as well as the emergence of social problems viewed by many people such as weakening of community ties, loss of symbolic and traditional rituals, and alienation of individuals from society (Bowers, 1988; cited in Mclsaac 1992). Since the practical applications of IT are nowadays the keys to scientific knowledge, developing countries like Turkey are dependent on technology developed elsewhere if they are to catch up with others. Since it takes about ten years to engage new technologies in such societies, therefore, the intervening period to the acquisition of scientific knowledge requires a good knowledge of IT as well as a foreign language. Applying IT in practical ways is believed crucial to improving the economic position and status of individuals. Training of Lecturers and Staff Development Most developing countries are faced with the problem of attracting and retaining competent IT teachers or professionals due to several factors articulated in the following paragraphs. Since training of lecturers is a crucial factor for the integration of IT in teacher education, the reasons lying behind "why IT should be used in the classroom" must be well defined. These benefits can be described as follows (Kearsley, 1983): Increase of control over and improving the utilisation or completion of learning materials, and increasing standardisation of instruction and monitoring of students' progress. Also, IT can be used to support students' registration, to assign training schedules, to generate and score tests, to produce reports on student progress^ and utilisation of training reports. Possibility of reduced capital resources by using computer-based simulators, graphics, and trainers to replace the need for costly actual equipment and a non-risk teaching environment which can make the course more compelling and cost-effective for training institutions. Opportunity of individual based learning to allow each student to learn at the speed and in a fashion most suited to his/her particular learning style. The capability of IT to offer an increased learning satisfaction by motivating students more than other forms of instruction due to their interactive nature, in which the availability of the immediate feedback and the capability of assessing progress help students to develop a sense of achievement This can be a crucial factor for the achievement and satisfactory completion of training programmes. Saving of time required to develop training programmes and materials with the advantage of revising and up-dating old course materials, which would increase the productivity of training development activities significantly. 188

6 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION Saving of time required for training due to the individualisation of instruction where, after an introduction and essential explanation, the lecturer may leave students to themselves for self-study, or students may be able to improve their skills in their own time. Improvement of job performance due to the benefits described above, particularly the capability of IT to offer an interactive and individualised method of learning which may increase the quality of training to a large extent. There are a number of advantages of using IT in teacher education, but the' process of implementation in educational institutions would require a great deal of time and effort Lecturers should be supported and offered opportunities to realise the potential of IT for promoting the quality of education through workshops, talks, in-service days, access to equipments, technical support, and also tutorials should be arranged for the lecturers who need further support In addition, Davis (1992) suggests that providing lecturers with professional support in using IT to improve the quality of their teaching, and in integrating IT into the curriculum, is more effective than offering staff development courses. It follows that an IT coordinator who has time and expertise should be available to provide professional support to lecturers. Otherwise, trends of installing IT in developing countries will not succeed in solving their socio-economic problems unless these provisions are manned and backed by skilled local manpower. Providing training abroad for staff, or hiring staff from developed countries is, however, a temporary solution and a costly one. Such efforts cannot be successful for long term development projects. Furthermore, a large number of the teachers or teacher trainers who have been trained abroad either do not go back to their countries, or after going back realise that they can get better paid posts and benefits elsewhere and leave at the first available opportunity (Hawkridge&McMahon, 1992, Altun, 1993). This tends to drain away the vital skilled staff needed to implement the new advances or technologies into their own educational system. The main problems of attracting and retaining competent academics or trainers have been outlined by the following factors (Gulati, 1980): Low salaries: For developing countries, in general, salaries in government educational institutions are lower compared with the private sector or other industrially advanced countries. Many competent lecturers are not satisfied with poor financial returns. So, offering even higher academic status is not sufficiently attractive. They usually improve their practical skills at universities or other educational institutes, and then move to private enterprises with better financial conditions and with the offer of a better social life. Therefore, in order to keep trained staff at the educational institutions, salaries should be competitive with private institutions as well as offering attractive working conditions such as 189

7 ERALP H. ALTON providing accommodation, better self-development opportunities, and flexible promotion procedures. Insufficiency and incompatibility of hardware and software'. For the lecturers, the availability of sufficient up-to-date hardware and high-quality laboratory equipment supporting user-friendly software increases efficiency in the classroom. In most developing countries, unfortunately, most of the educational institutions either do not have sufficient IT resources or have no appropriate software to use with the hardware that exists. This may be due to poor financial conditions and/or poor software development facilities. All institutions should have policies for purchasing up-to-date hardware and courseware. Curriculum implementation prospects: In developed or developing countries adopting new technologies into the curriculum is also a significant issue to overcome. The shortage of research and development projects makes the problem more difficult More research based studies should be encouraged and organised in order to identify the issues constraining curriculum implementation. Excessive amount of work: As the population of the world and the requirement of a skilled work force rises continuously, the need for education and training is tremendous, particularly in the countries where the population is increasing very sharply. Teachers, trainers or educators have to cope with enormous work loads. Their highly demanding work compared with colleagues in other professions causes dissatisfaction, lower achievement, lower morale and misunderstanding in the world in which they live or work. Such circumstances leads many professionals to find less demanding jobs. The volume of work needed to be done by educators should not result in a lowering of quality, rather it should be kept at an optimum level so that there is sufficient time for their other needs such as following new advances in their subject area, and for doing more research. Low quality of work: Most of the work done by educators is not the kind of work that could help them to improve their skills or follow new developments in their field. Therefore, the level of work should be more related to the new advances in their subject area and research based rather than ordinary management or assessment related tasks. In particular, assessment related work should be more based on evaluating a small number of projects or assignments than frequent written examinations which usually take a longer time to assess. Low performance: The large amount of workload - such as lecturing, assessment, management - will adversely affect lecturers' performance in classroom since they will not have adequate time to prepare for their lectures. The lecturer's low performance would be rather frustrating for themselves, and criticised by the students. Lack of self-development opportunities: Due to shortage of time and funding, most teachers and educators are not able to attend conferences, 190

8 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION seminars, courses, etc. Additionally, insufficient number of books and journals on new instruction technologies and teaching methods, and lack of materials in the institution, will deprive lecturers from self-development opportunities. Inadequate research and consultancy opportunities: Research and consultancy facilities are two crucial aspects of educational institutions that, when properly managed, may keep the faculty staff motivated in their occupations. Insufficient resources in teacher training institutions and limited time factors are impoverishing research studies. For consultancy, the limited availability of time is a significant constraining element. Time consuming and bureaucratic procedures: It is quite common in developing countries to come across lengthy, unrealistic, tiresome bureaucratic obstacles within institutions. These unpopular demands cause frustration for academics and teachers which affects their performance and effectiveness. They would prefer to arrange lectures, laboratory experiments, field works, visits to essential places, or other necessary activities which require considerable time for organising the planned activity. Reducing such bureaucratic procedures to a minimum level would also enhance the performance of academics within their educational activities. Unrealistic promotional prospects: The lengthy promotion procedures within higher education systems may make lecturers, particularly of information technology, reluctant to continue their work, since they realise that they can get better paid posts in industry or in the private sector. Clear and realistic promotional procedures may increase the enthusiasm of academics for an active performance within the institutions, in which higher status may help to improve personal satisfaction. Organisational essentials: The inflexible structure of universities in developing countries may also be to their disadvantage in retaining qualified lecturers. This may particularly be observed in the countries where all universities are run by a council or central government Higher education institutions need to be autonomous and allowed to find solutions for the demands of their staff in lecturing, research and other areas. For instance, in most of the Turkish higher education institutions, universities do not have comparable staff to student ratios, resource facilities, research and self-development opportunities, or quality of life. Therefore, relatively poorly resourced and staffed rural area universities need to offer attractive working conditions to staff in order to retain them. This could be provided by better accommodation, travelling facilities for attending seminars and conferences, and particularly better communication facilities to access sources of information easily. Using instructional technologies to assist the teacher to achieve goals or objectives strengthens the link between technology and the quality of education delivered (Reyes, Torp, & Voelker, 1993). The process of 191

9 ERALP H. ALTUN introducing IT into educational systems of developing countries has been a complex and difficult one similar to introducing any other new technology in these countries (Hawkridge & McMahon, 1992). The issues to be dealt with in such a process are enormous for countries that are mainly transferring technology from post industrial countries, but lacking skilled manpower to utilise the transferred technology. Gulati (1980) classifies the problems relating to computer based education and training into three main areas, namely: (a) physical resources; (b) curriculum development and (c) lecturers. These issues should be considered as a whole in order to resolve the problems, and to overcome the obstacles of installing new information and communication technologies into the system. Woodrow (1992) has described six principles for the professional development of teachers: (i) localisation, (ii) personalization, (iii) collaborative practice, (iv) training the trainers, (v) whole school policies, and (vi) national planning. These issues require more effective policies to be followed, particularly in initial teacher training, because the burden of implementing educational innovations falls on the teacher (Hodgkinson, Wild & Bailey, 1991; Johnson, 1993). Furthermore, to develop information technology teaching and learning skills, and positive attitudes towards the use of these new technologies in student teachers requires teacher trainers to be well aware of educational issues involved in IT innovation. Lecturers should be offered effective training in recent information technology advances and be provided with self-development opportunities by several means: workshops, conferences and telecommunications network. The role of lecturers' attitudes towards IT is important to the successful implementation of IT in teacher education programmes. Thus, lecturers' attitudes should be evaluated throughout the process of the IT innovation in education (Stevens, 1982), and based upon these evaluations teacher training courses should be refined or updated (Woodrow, 1987). Training teachers in IT through well planned in-service or pre-service courses may help them to implement IT quickly and effectively into classroom practice. However, the effectiveness of both these types of course, particularly in-service IT courses, should be studied in detail to establish whether they really deliver the intended aims and objectives. Short term in-service courses may not be satisfactory for using IT properly in schools, therefore research should be carried out into this domain. Well trained initial teachers can use IT better and can provide training for other colleagues in their schools. Therefore, enhancing the quality of training for initial teachers is dependent upon: their lecturers' familiarity with IT applications (hardware, software and associated technology) in their subject area; the experience of lecturers in developing necessary IT skills for teaching and learning in student teachers; 192

10 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION the skills of lecturers for integrating the use of IT into their teaching with student teachers; and provision of adequate facilities to support students' use of IT in the faculty, and in schools. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study was: To measure the familiarity of teacher educators with recent IT applications in education; To investigate how far IT could help lecturers to improve their job performance, and its relation to their previous experience of using IT applications; To investigate the issues that affect employment and retainment of competent IT lecturers in higher education institutions, to identify what factors are considered to be more crucial and what are the main obstacles for overcoming the shortage of competent staff; To investigate the importance of factors and general problems related to IT implementation in educational institutions, and to draw some conclusions on the prospects of IT implementation in initial teacher education regarding training of lecturers. Materials and Procedures A questionnaire survey, based on the points above, was piloted and carried out The questionnaire included items on background of the participants, such as gender, age, subject specialism, years of IT experience, the phase of teaching (undergraduate/postgraduate). The first section reviewed the IT familiarity of the lecturers, namely their experience of using 12 different IT applications in education. The second section surveyed subjects' opinions on the presented 7 benefits of IT to lecturers and teachers described in the previous section. The third section aimed to investigate important factors in implementing IT in teacher education, and the final section aimed to measure the vitality of issues affecting staff employment, retainment and development. Collection of the data and subjects The questionnaire was piloted by a number of lecturers and research students, and on the basis of that trial some ambiguous expressions or items that lacked clarity due to incompatibility with the Turkish language were altered. After revision by an expert IT Lecturer, the final Turkish version of the questionnaire was administered to 36 lecturers in six different state universities. The data were collected personally during August During the completion of the questionnaire the researcher was available to explain 193

11 ERALP H. ALTUN any unclear items, or any new terms used that were not familiar to respondents. In most cases, the questionnaire was administered to two to four lecturers at a time. The instructions mainly asked subjects to circle the most appropriate choice for them (numbered from 1 to 4) with regard to their knowledge and experience of IT; their views about IT related issues and factors in higher education. The subjects were chosen from the lecturers who had some knowledge of, and experience in, IT applications. Of the 36 respondents who participated in this study, 28 were male (78%), and 8 were female (22%). Their job titles are named as Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor and Research Assistants. In this study, 3 Professors (8%), 8 Associate Professors (22%), 7 Assistant Professors (20%) and 18 Research Assistants (50%) participated. Age distribution of the lecturers ranged from 22 to 52 years, in which 10 lecturers were between 22 and 27; 15 lecturers between 28 and 33; 3 lecturers between 34 and 39; 3 lecturers between 40 and 46, and 5 between the age of 47 and 52. As the researcher was a former chemistry teacher, the study focused on chemistry teacher education, so nearly half of the lecturers' subject specialism was chemistry (47%), with educational studies 17%, biology 14%, physics 11%, mathematics 6% and economics 5%. Of the total 36 lectures, 20 were teaching undergraduate courses, and 16 were teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate courses of the secondary phase. Treatment of the Data Data from the completed questionnaires were then coded and analysed by using the StatView SE+Graphics statistical analysis and presentation program. In the coding, the highest numbers (i.e. 4) represented the most positive opinion, while the lowest numbers (i.e. 1) represented the least positive opinion on the items presented in the questionnaire. In analysing the data, both descriptive and inferential statistical methods were used. All the statements of the questionnaire are described in the following section by the frequency distributions (percentages) derived from the lecturers' responses. Results and Discussions This section discusses the responses obtained from lecturers in order to measure the familiarity or otherwise of the staff in Turkish educational institutions to IT applications. Also, the obtained data comprising lecturers' self-reports on usefulness of IT to them are analysed and discussed. 194

12 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION Results of Experience in using IT Applications In order to obtain acceptable results for this study, subjects were particularly selected from the ones who had previous experience of IT. Although most respondents had an experience of using IT in education, the length of experience was not very long. As many as 78% of the lecturers reported an experience of IT up to 5 years, and the remaining in excess of five years of experience. Results concerning years of IT experience were very important in relation to responding to other parts of the questionnaire. Greater IT experience of subjects may enable us to obtain more educationally sound results, particularly in terms of the items seeking self-reports of respondents for the usefulness of IT in education. The Use of IT Applications Figure 1 shows the use of IT applications by the 36 Turkish lecturers, most of whom had previous IT knowledge and experience, only a few had experience of on-line, CD-ROM, Interactive Video, and HyperCard applications. As far as using word processing programmes is concerned, results obtained from respondents show that a high percentage (89%) of the Turkish lecturers have used word processing facilities for teaching or academic purposes. This may be due to the fact that word processors are easier and more efficient than typewriters. This made them more popular as labour reduction tools. Therefore, a great number of educators are using this facility merely for that purpose all over the world (Pelgrum&Plomp, 1991), and they view word processing as a high priority amongst the IT applications (Woodrow, 1991). Only 6% of the respondents reported that they do not understand word processing and a further 6 % know about it, but have not used it yet Graphics was the second most common use for academic purposes and for teaching. Relatively lower percentages occurred for spreadsheets and database programmes. The limited use of spreadsheets and database programmes may be related to unavailability of such programmes. A large number of respondents also reported that they knew about spreadsheet programmes, but they verbally indicated that these must be very complicated applications and therefore they did not attempt to learn how to use them. None of the respondents indicated that they have used electronic mail and on-line services for teaching, although a number of respondents had personally used them or knew about them. The reason for such limited use of these applications was generally reported as being the high cost of using telecommunications, and for some limited knowledge of how to use such facilities. 195

13 ERALP H. ALTUN Z Don't Understand Do Know Have Used O Teach with 70 x Figure 1. Use of IT applications (n=36). Looking at Figure 1, it is apparent that the familiarity with some newly developed IT systems; CD-ROMs, inter-active video, and HyperCard or LinkWay is also weak and a very high percentage of lecturers do not even understand the terms. The rare use of these applications was stated by most respondents as due to the unavailability of programmes for the purpose of such educational activities in higher education institutions. The overall results show that common IT applications are used in Turkish teacher training institutions, but they are not used extensively. Benefits of IT to Lecturers and Teachers Figure 2 represents lecturers opinions on the benefits IT could provide for them and for teachers. It is interesting to note that almost all respondents (98%) believed that the use of IT could help them to administer and monitor students more effectively, whereas none of the respondents indicated strong disagreement with that, and only 3% of them stated that this is less likely. Most respondents reported that they use computers for all student records and marks in examinations, which are held at least four times a term. With such frequent examination procedures, and large number of students, the use of IT may substantially ease lecturers' paperwork. Overall respondents showed a positive inclination towards the idea of reduced resource requirement when using IT. The individualisation of study for both lecturer and student was also reported by a combined total of 86% of 196

14 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION respondents positively, none indicating disagreement with IT's contribution to self-study. BUnimportant Dless important H important M very important It was also interesting that no respondents showed strong disagreement with the following items: increased learning satisfaction, reduced development time and reduced training time. Another noteworthy finding was that all respondents either agreed (56%), or strongly agreed (44%), with IT's contribution to their job performance. This was generally identified to be very much related to the other advantages of IT for lecturers indicated above. This means that if IT helps lecturers in many ways such as more effective and easier control in administration of students, reducing resource requirement, the time required for developing teaching materials as well as the opportunity of individualised study and increased learning satisfaction, then lecturers' or teachers' job performance would certainly improve. It is also important to note that most lecturers who participated in this study did not actually observe all the above asserted benefits of IT with their relatively limited IT familiarity and experience. They generally had a rather positive image about potential of IT in education, but little experience. Factors Affecting Implementation of IT in Teacher Education As shown in Figure 3, many lecturers identified several factors to be vital in implementing IT in educational institutions. The overall positive responses for the factors dealt with were: staff development (100%), budget (100%), application of IT inside chemistry course (97%), computer : student ratio (95%), technical support (94%), monitoring and evaluation (92%), policy (86%), accommodation (81%), relevant curriculum software (71%), and 197

15 ERALP H. ALTON software development (72%) [The percentages used here represent combined total of values for 'important' and 'very important']. However, 3% of the respondents indicated that computer: student ratio, accommodation and policy are 'unimportant'. During the conversations with lecturers, the most common factor stated was staff development and quantitative results showed a combined total of 100% agreement with its importance. As many as 53% of the respondents replied monitoring and evaluation factor 'important', whilst none reported 'unimportant', and only 8% indicated 'less important'. Similarly, half of the respondents stated software development and relevant curriculum software factors 'important' compared to other items mentioned in the previous paragraph mostly indicated to be 'very important'. The reason for such assessment was said to be that priority should be given the elements like hardware and software provision, staff development, technical support, and funding problems. 'Application of IT inside chemistry course' element was also stated by most respondents (different subject lecturers replied it for their own area) as a 'very important' factor, and a substantial lack of such IT applications was also criticised. It is evident from the results that most factors for implementing IT in educational institutions are highly identified to be either important or very important More staff development initiatives and funding for IT, as well as technical support, would greatly help to improve the implementation of IT in higher education institutions. 198

16 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION The Issues Affecting Employment and Retainment of Competent Lecturers in Higher Education Institutions Regarding the employment and retainment of competent lecturers in higher education institutions, respondents agreed that most of 11 factors stated in the survey are either important or very important The items were ranked in the following sequence in regard to their 'importance'. Importance was calculated by combining two values which were given to 'important' and 'very important': Research and Consultancy Facilities (98%) Self-development Facilities (95%) Availability of Hardware and Software (89%) Curriculum Implementation Prospects (89%) Bureaucratic Obstacles (88%) Organisational Structures (86%) Promotional Prospects (68%) Amount of Work (64%) Work Performance (61%) Salaries (57%) Quality of Work (53%) Two very important findings were the issues of 'self-development opportunities' and 'research and consultancy' facilities available for lecturers. A high proportion of respondents reported that self-development opportunities are crucial and none of the respondents indicated that these opportunities are unimportant. Regarding research and consultancy facilities, the overall tendency shows a positive inclination of a combined total of 98% of respondents, and the remaining proportion indicated such facilities to be 'less important'. Availability of hardware and software in educational institutions was seen as crucial for employing competent lecturers by most respondents (61%) since some institutions had sufficient hardware but not software, whilst some others had none of them. None of the respondents reported that the availability of sufficient hardware and software is unimportant, a combined total of 89% of respondents indicated the importance of these aspects in employing and retaining skilled staff at higher education institutions. Regarding curriculum implementation prospects, 53% of the respondents agreed, and 36% strongly agreed with the importance of such issues as opposed to 3% who strongly disagreed with it Bureaucratic obstacles were reported by overall majority of 78% of the respondents to be effective factors, whilst 7% did not agree with it, and 14% 199

17 ERALP H. ALTUN stated 'less important'. One of the issues dealt with was organisational structures which was also seen by 75% of the subjects to be significant, as opposed to 6% who suggested these issues being not significant at all. All these final three issues are highly related to the structure of higher education system in Turkey, which is managed by a Higher Education Council and all the higher education policies are drawn by this council. This centralised higher education system has some limitations for universities to improving their facilities and making decisions for essential changes. A more autonomous form of university could help eliminate the negative effects of bureaucratic matters and organisational structures. Promotional issues also seemed to be significant for educational staff, as 53% of them stated importance of such prospects compared to 14% of respondents disagreed with it 'Amount of work', and 'quality of work' needs to be done, and 'work performance' of lecturers were reported by majority of respondents 'fairly important' as compared with inclination of 'not important at all' by a much smaller proportion of the subjects. These results imply that lecturers are not having real difficulties with the amount of the work that needs to be done, but the quality of the work done is important and also work performance, to a lesser extent, for their job satisfaction. In terms of item 'salaries', the results of the survey appear to indicate that 22% of the respondents reported it as unimportant, 20% less important, 25% important, and 33% very important It should be noted that these results are average figures derived from those lecturers who work in different parts of Turkey, where salaries vary due to social, economic and geographical conditions of the areas. For instance, in the eastern part universities' payments are up to 50% higher than the other parts of the country. Therefore, the respondents from these areas may have thought of salaries as sufficient and not a negative factor for acquiring more competent staff.. The overall familiarity of lecturers with IT was found to be average. In addition, we found out that most IT users in these institutions are research assistants who have learned and gained experience through their own personal interest in this area and get very little support from their own institutions. Therefore, there was a clear and urgent need for more experienced and competent staff to implement IT in higher education. The need of staff development initiatives and professional support for lecturers was seen to be a most essential aspect of IT innovation in education. The necessity of self-development opportunities was expressed by most respondents. Especially, the senior staff with busy teaching programmes do not have sufficient self-development or research opportunities for gaining experience in the use of IT applications. To sum up, most subjects seem to have rather positive images and enthusiasm towards the use of IT in teacher training. 200

18 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION Discussion and Conclusions The positive opinions expressed by the respondents may be due to the present difficulties being faced in their teaching and their extremely positive image of IT. Most respondents appear to believe that IT systems are very powerful tools in solving the difficulties that they are currently facing, such as controlling and administrating large number of students, and having limited teaching resources to improve the quality of education. Lecturers rather positive image of IT may be seen as an advantage at the initial stage of introducing new information technology in higher education, but without sufficient professional and administrative support for lecturers IT innovation will result in frustration and more complex problems. Lecturers' limited experience and familiarity with IT systems, and their rather positive image of IT's capability and potential for education may have directed them to indicate strongly positive opinions on the benefits of IT to lecturers and teachers. To sum up, most lecturers seem to have a rather positive image and enthusiasm towards the use of IT in teacher training which might be seen as an advantage in such innovation. Although some of the opinions given by the respondents may seem to be unsatisfactory, they might in the long run have a positive contribution to the implementation of the suggestions of this study. The economic development of the country in general is obviously an important factor. Also, it is due to the fact that IT is a relatively new and fast developing area in education, which requires time and effort to follow all the advances in order to be competent in the use of new information and communication technologies. In addition, the age of subjects and gender differences may be important factors, which need to be investigated in future studies. The limited number of subjects in this study did not permit such specific investigations. Turkey's efforts relating to the adaptation of new technologies into its educational system may require redesign of the system as a whole. Training of teachers for new technologies, provision of technologies and their adaptation into the curriculum are the first aspects of the innovation. Although the educational structure has undergone some modifications in recent years, the latest developments throughout the world, and the rapidly increasing population of the country (2.1% annually), has made the process of educating people more complicated. As the new technologies may provide comparatively better and easier access to information, the country has to produce new policies to utilise the recent developments. There are a number of areas that need to be reviewed in accordance with recent demands created by new advances within the information processing and transmitting methods. These include redesigning the curriculum, revising teacher training processes, introducing new teaching and learning methods, and introducing new information and communication 201

19 ERALP H. ALTUN technologies into schools which will affect each individual's life significantly in the next century. Turkey is facing a number of problems in the training, recruitment, employment and professional development of its teaching force. Especially in teacher education faculties: (1) the number of teaching staff is insufficient, particularly in the area of the use of IT in education, (2) research activities are neglected, (3) a limited number of professional journals and books are produced and provided by the universities. Therefore, professional development of teaching staff in teacher training institutions will remain a major obstacle in implementing new programmes and policies. These negative factors will also have an impact on the quality of the teachers trained in these institutions. Several lecturers reported almost the same concerns of shortage of competent staff and, most importantly, inadequate staff development opportunities, in one of the comments given below : I would say that we have sufficient computers at the moment in our university at least for beginning. Instead of buying more hardware, which becomes out of date after a while, it would be better to train more staff in the use of computers and to reach a certain competence level with the existing technology. Without having sufficient competent staff in the use of IT, such expensive and large scale innovations should not be put into effect At present, the computers available in our university are only being used for word processing purposes, which does not fulfil the real aim of placing such expensive technology into higher education institutions. It would be better to have more educational applications and other materials to take best advantage of IT. Some lecturers got very frustrated when marking the use of IT applications, mostly 'don't understand', and one of the professors got very much upset by remarking: "I am sorry, but how can you expect us to integrate IT into our teacher training since we, as lecturers, have very little experience of using IT. First, we must be trained so that we could be able to educate our teachers for the use of IT applications in various subjects." I observed the same feeling of being behind advances in the IT applications with several lecturers who strongly indicated lack of staff development as one of the most crucial factors in implementing IT in higher education. The other factors were also strongly reported being crucial, particularly budget and technical support. There was very limited technical support available, and limited funding for hardware and software. The current teaching methodology is basically chalk-and-talk which is not efficient enough for effective teaching compared with the use of new technologies. The results of this survey suggest that new methods of teaching are essential. Application of new technologies will support new methods of teaching and learning. Understanding new technologies more may help one to understand subject matter better. 202

20 TURKISH TEACHER EDUCATION While each newly developed technology usually aims to provide better facilities than the previous one, the areas where the applications of the newer technology can be applied are becoming larger. Therefore, the teachers and students of the coming twenty first century must be aware of and understand the functions of commonly used IT applications, especially for those who are dealing with science where there are more difficulties of teaching and learning. They also should: know how to use these new technologies effectively in the process of scientific control and measurement; have knowledge about the use of information technologies in daily life; investigate more appropriate and constructive applications of computer based simulations; be able to store and retrieve scientific data whenever it is required. Initial teacher training institutions should formulate and put into effect institutional policies to ensure that all trainee teachers acquire basic information technology related knowledge and the skills and the competence to apply these in the classroom. These policies should be actively supported by the senior staff of the institution, and provision should be made for monitoring and updating regularly. Through this complicated process, all the available institutions offering advice and resources should support initial teacher training institutions to enhance the quality of teaching and learning with IT, and to provide support for lecturers to integrate IT across the curriculum, as well as monitoring the process of institutional change. For the teacher educators and the other technical staff 'IT development or awareness days' should be regularly organised to improve their self-efficiency and update their knowledge. In addition, the economic, social and other issues concerning teaching and technical staff should be agreed by all members, and better working conditions should be maintained. The introduction of IT in the teacher education system of developing countries and its successful and effective implementation necessitates the adoption of appropriate strategies and means. Considerable planning and development will be necessary for these countries to get their manpower trained and educated. Choice of suitable computers and peripherals, proper placing of computers in institutions, adequate software and maintenance support, increase of skilled personnel, teachers and technicians, and a good understanding of the socio-economic impact are crucial factors to be taken into consideration for effective utilisation of IT. Acknowledgement I would like to thank Professor N. E. Davis and Professor P. F. W. Preece for their very helpful comments on a previous draft of this article, and to the Turkish Ministry of Education for making it possible for me to do this study. 203