THE KEY SUCCESS FACTOR IN TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

Pak. J. Statist. 2013 Vol. 29(5), 525-534 THE KEY SUCCESS FACTOR IN TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION Mei-Ju Chou Department of Early Childhood Education Taiwan Shoufu University, Taiwan Address: No. 168, Nanshi Li, Madou District, Tainan City 72153, Taiwan Email: choumeiru88@yahoo.com.tw ABSTRACT In the changeable information era, diverse instructional media have been modified and promoted. Information Technology deeply affects social transition and development. Preschool plays the leading role in promoting social development; children mainly accept information technology integrated into humanity quality in early childhood education and in family education. Hence, Information Technology Integrated into Instruction needs the cooperation from parents support, the equipment resources from school administration, and the scaffolding from teachers curriculum design. Consequently, in order to effectively advance Information Technology Integrated into Instruction for early childhood education, to investigate the key success factor in integrating Information Technology Instruction into Childhood Education from three main groups, including preschool administrative staff, preschool teachers and parents is extremely valued. The development process of Early Childhood Education and the planning elements for Information Technology Integrated Instruction and the key success factors are first explained. Aiming at the ten preschools which adopted Information Technology Integrated Instruction for more than one year in the Southern Taiwan Cities as purposive sampling, interview and questionnaire survey is further preceded for discussing the key success factors. In terms of key success factors in Information Technology Integrated Instruction, the experts pay attention to Children s Learning Attitude within the evaluation dimensions in the second hierarchy, with the weight 0.475 about 47.5% of the overall weight. The following emphases are Parents Expectation toward School Support (weight 0.383) and Equipment and Resources (weight 0.142). From the investigation, Children s Learning Attitude is regarded as the most stressed dimension for Information Technology Integrated Instruction for Early Childhood Education in Taiwan. And only with the school, the parents support and the teachers curriculum scaffolding, children s learning attitude appropriately and positively develops. KEYWORDS Information Technology; Key Success Factor; Early Childhood Education. 2013 Pakistan Journal of Statistics 525

526 The Key Success Factor in Technology Education 1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND Preschool children are our future boss, and preschool is the places where our future key persons learn and play. For parents deep expectation that preschool could effectively integrate information technology into children s learning and play, the study aims to explore the key success factor in Information Technology Integrated Instruction for Early Childhood Education. Similar to the relations between education and social development, Early Childhood Education also presents close relations. Parents generally reveal Value on Childhood Education and are afraid of the children not entering quality or appropriate preschools or kindergartens that they strive for having their children getting into appropriate preschools or kindergartens, as they believe in not having children start too late. With such a trend leading Early Childhood Education, it gradually becomes the mainstream value in the society that children-centered educational theories have been greatly developed in recent years. In modern early childhood instruction, for children s learning and development, preschool teachers both precede and guide the instruction. When the relevant data cannot be listed in detail because of the restriction on locality, preschool teachers would apply various resources guiding children to looking for relevant data through fieldwork, computer network, written or electronic storybooks, and news and magazines. The action process of learning and using learning resources is the application process. People in applications, either instructors or instruction planners, should provide specific materials and activities for learners, encourage children to interact with the materials and activities selected by the person in charge of such learning activities (Chiu, 2006; Chiu, 2010; OLPC, 2008; Seels & Richey, 1994). Such interactive learning could be applied to information technology integrated instruction in preschool and elementary schools (Chiu & Chuang, 2004; Chiu, 2006; Chiu, 2010). In such instructional processes, preschool teachers are aware of the demand of Information Technology Integrated Instruction, make suitable teaching design and arrangement through individual power or the assistance of professional teachers in the exploration and integration process, and develop innovative instruction. As a consequence, for meeting parents expectation toward children s learning effectiveness, promoting Information Technology Integrated Instruction to understand the feelings, requirements, and attitudes of teachers is also regarded as a significant issue. The acceptance of Information Technology Integrated Instruction would affect teachers behaviors on Information Technology Integrated Instruction and further influence the teaching performance. In such a changeable information era, it is wondered why some teachers would rapidly accept a new technology, while the others do not, and why some instructional technologies are accepted by most teachers, while the other are not, when various teaching media are developed and promoted. Aiming at promoting Information Technology Integrated Instruction to be feasible, this study tends to conclude the key success factors in Information Technology Integrated Instruction.

Mei-Ju Chou 527 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND DISCUSSION 2.1 Definition of Information Technology Integrated Instruction Information technology is a new system or transmission developed with digital media. In other words, it is the technology to collect, process, store, and transmit texts, figures, images, and audio with computers, multimedia, and network media (Nesset & Large, 2004; Hung, 2009). Information Technology Integrated Instruction in Grade 1-9 Curriculum stresses on the integration for instruction that information technology is regarded as the learning tool in the integration of curriculum, materials, and instructional activities for learning (Ayas, 2006; Wang, 2010). It is also the blending of computerrelated learning activities into curriculum to have children acquire, organize, demonstrate, and communicate information (Liang, 2006; Yeh, Chang, and Chang, 2011). Information education is developed from computer-assisted instruction, computerbased curriculum implementation, to information integrated instruction (D Angelo & Woosley; 2007), where the role of information changes from a teacher into a learning partner, as computers support Knowledge Construction and Knowledge Explorations as well as Learning by Doing, Collaborative Learning, and Learning by Reflection (Chang, 2012). Since 1988, the cultivation of information skills has been integrated into school instruction in the US that researchers have done distinct research on Information Literacy and the Application to Education. For instance, Eisenberg and Berkowitz (1999) proposed that the media resource centers in the libraries in schools should provide courses about library and information skills. American Association of School Librarians (AASL) proposed the cultivation plan of information problem solving skills, Information literacy: A position paper on information problem solving, in 1995 and argued that information literacy was the application of information problem-solving skills and the provision of information literacy cultivation and the theory of curriculum integration (Chien & Liu, 2010; Lai, 2010). Dwyer (2002) indicated that information technology allowed students constructing and inspecting the true situations and learners selfadjusting and applying various resources. Domestic researchers have also emphasized the research on Information Technology Integrated Instruction. Hung (2009) regarded information technology as the application of information technology to the teaching activities of various subjects (with information equipment, multimedia, and network media to collect, store, and transmit texts, figures, and audio) and the combination of computerized new systems or new transmission for the overall instructional activities (objectives, students, contents, environments, and teachers). Such new instruction presents better applications of interaction, reproducibility, computability, and instrumentalization. Chou (2012) suggests that the early childhood educators should be provided some suggestions and reference in Information Technology Integrated Instructions and teaching effectiveness. Moreover, Chang (2012) pointed out that Information Technology Integrated Instruction was teachers applying information technology to in-class instruction and after-class activities for cultivating students ability

528 The Key Success Factor in Technology Education of applying technology and information and the spirit of active exploration and research to complete career planning and lifelong learning with independent thinking and problem-solving. 2.2 Factors in Information Technology Integrated Instruction Chang (2011) discussed the factors in teachers implementing information integrated instruction with Case Study, where the case data contained questionnaires, twice interviews with teachers and the colleagues, and twice class observation. The analyses covered the external factors of equipment, materials, time, policies, administration, peers, and information personnel and four internal factors of individual intention, self-efficacy of computers, teaching beliefs, and professional continuing learning. The findings showed that the common factors in teachers implementing information integrated instruction included the equipment of projectors and computers, the materials to enhance learning performance and teacher-student interaction, large investment in leisure time, strong individual intention, sufficient self-efficacy of computers, teaching beliefs in information technology being able to enhance teaching performance, and professional continuing learning for new ideas, while the non-common factors contained policies, administration, peer support, and support of information personnel (Chang, 2010). Teachers teaching beliefs (Chien, 2009; Chiu, 2006; Chiu, 2010; Huang, 2010; Liao, 2010.) and the external environment were considered as the key factors in the application of computer technology (Wiskle, 1988; Chiero, 1997; Chien, 2011) and Dusick (1998) regarded teachers personal characters and school environment as the factors in teachers applying information technology to the instruction. 3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD 3.1 Delphi Method Delphi Method combines the advantage of expert group opinions so as to avoid the situational pressure resulted from face-to-face discussions. The overall opinions and the predicted problems are further feedback to the experts for more opinions. The experts would modify the original opinions according to the overall opinions, which are then summarized. By repeating such steps for several times, more consistent prediction would be acquired. Having Modified Delphi Method as the research method, present indicators were organized from relevant literatures, and anonymous expert group decision-making was applied to integrating the expert opinions on Information Technology Integrated Instruction. Statistical Analysis, Mean, and Quartile Deviation were further utilized for systematically processing data in order to acquire the common consensus of the experts on the factors in Information Technology Integrated Instruction. 3.2 Evaluation indicator The first questionnaire, which was based on the interview from 12 administrators, 12 preschool teachers, and 12 preschool children s parents, titled The Considered Factors in Information Technology Integrated Instruction, was sent to the experts by email. The considerations for Information Technology Integrated Instruction were organized from the first expert feedback. Such considerations were further classified and sent back to the

Mei-Ju Chou 529 experts for opinions. Email was utilized in the process till the final results. An expert conference was eventually held to classify the key success factors in Information Technology Integrated Instruction into the dimensions of Software, Government, Resource, Service Management, and Hardware. Such key factors were further regarded as the dimensions for AHP questionnaire. The young children s parents, administrators, teachers in the ten preschools in Southern Taiwan Cities were selected as the purposive samples for questionnaire survey. It tended to understand the effects of the weight of each factor on Information Technology Integrated Instruction. With the modification of Delphi Method, the following evaluation indicators were contained. Parents Expectation toward School Support: (1) Planning and Management, (2) Staff Development and Training, (3) Curriculum and Instruction Integration, (4) Relevant In- Service Opportunity, (5) Learning Environment, and (6) Teacher Encouragement. Children s Learning Attitude: (1) Teacher Intention, (2) Teaching Beliefs, (3) Information Literacy of Teachers, and (4) Scaffolding of Professionals. Equipment and Resources: (1) Appropriate Location, (2) Computer Equipment, (3) Network Environment, and (4) Teaching Materials. 3.3 Research subject By distributing the questionnaire to the administrators, teachers, and parents in the preschools in the Southern Taiwan Cities, it was expected to realize the effects of the weight of each factor on Information Technology Integrated Instruction. Total 900 copies for each categories 300 copies in administrators, teachers, and parents were distributed, and total 585 valid ones were retrieved, with the retrieval rate 65%. 4. DISCUSSION OF QUESTIONNAIRE DATA ANALYSIS After completing all hierarchical weights, the evaluation indicators were allocated in each hierarchy according to the importance, presenting the importance of the indicator in the entire evaluation system, and the overall weight of the key success factors in Information Technology Integrated Instruction was selected, Table 1.

530 The Key Success Factor in Technology Education Dimension Parents Expectation toward School Support Children s Learning Attitude Equipment and Resources Hierarchy II Weight Table 1 Overall Weight of the Key Success Factor in Information Technology Integrated Instruction Hierarchy II Order 0.383 2 0.475 1 0.142 3 Indicator Planning and Management Staff Development and Training Curriculum and Instruction Integration Relevant In-Service Opportunity Learning Environment Teacher Encouragement Teacher Intention Teaching Beliefs Information Literacy of Teachers Scaffolding of Professionals Appropriate Location Computer Equipment Network Environment Teaching Materials Hierarchy III Weight Hierarchy III Order Overall weight Overall order 0.142 4 0.063 8 0.201 2 0.106 4 0.251 1 0.126 1 0.121 5 0.051 10 0.179 3 0.082 6 0.106 6 0.014 14 0.337 1 0.118 2 0.219 3 0.038 12 0.276 2 0.092 5 0.168 4 0.029 13 0.225 3 0.057 9 0.269 2 0.070 7 0.158 4 0.041 11 0.348 1 0.113 3 Based on the analyses of questionnaire survey, Table 1, the following conclusions are summarized. Within the dimensions in Hierarchy II, the experts focus on Children s Learning Attitude, with the weight 0.475 about 47.5% of the overall weight, followed by Parents Expectation toward School Support (weight 0.383) and Equipment and Resources(weight 0.142). The results reveal that Children s Learning Attitude is the most emphasis for Information Technology Integrated Instruction.

Mei-Ju Chou 531 Within the evaluation indicators in Hierarchy III, the hierarchical weights are ordered as below. i) The evaluation indicators for Parents Expectation toward School Support are ordered Curriculum and Instruction Integration, Staff Development and Training, Learning Environment, Planning and Management, Relevant In-Service Opportunity, and Teacher Encouragement. ii) The evaluation indicators for Children s Learning Attitude are ordered Teacher Intention, Information Literacy of Teachers, Teaching Beliefs, and Scaffolding of Professionals. iii) The evaluation indicators for Equipment and Resources are ordered Teaching Materials, Computer Equipment, Appropriate Location, and Network Environment. Concerning the administrators, teachers and parents interview data for constructing the first questionnaire, the summarized description are as follows. In parents expectation toward school support, to provide sufficient staff training that preschool teachers feel comfortable both with the information technology integrated into the children s classroom, and to select the software for providing the child-centered information technology area where children can make choices by themselves is valued importantly as other social, music, and language learning centers in the classroom. However, in assessing children s learning attitude, teachers and parents shouldn t use the information technology integrated into computers or assisted tools as a reward for children s behaviors and task completeness, which is consistent with NAEYC (1996). And adults shouldn t use computers for drill and skill activities. In equipment and resources, parents and preschool teachers should carefully evaluate all software, both for developmental appropriateness, and for non-stereotypical and nonviolent material. Preschool teachers and parents shouldn t allow computer use to distract children s attention from the following early childhood activities: art, music, social interaction, exploration of books, playing on the playground, etc. 5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION Research (Chiu, 2006; Chiu, 2008a; Chiu, 2008b) on Information Technology Integrated Instructions tended towards with the convenient internet access, more and more information being digitized are getting easily accessed to learning nowadays, in order to supplement traditional techniques, the study offers early childhood educators and parents related information in making great use of information technology integrated instruction, including the infusion of images, animations, videos, presentations, e-storybooks and e-learning etc. According to the empirical results, the following conclusions are expected to propose a definite guidance and direction for domestic Information Technology Integrated Instruction. From the overall weight of the key success factors in Information Technology Integrated Instruction, the top five indicators, within the fourteen evaluation indicators, contain (1) Curriculum and Instruction Integration, 0.126 of the overall weight, (2) Teacher Intention, 0.118 of the overall weight, (3) Teaching Materials, 0.113 of the overall weight, (4) Staff Development and Training, 0.1063 of the overall weight, and (5) Information Literacy of Teachers, 0.092 of

532 The Key Success Factor in Technology Education the overall weight. Based on the above analyses, Curriculum and Instruction Integration, Teacher Intention, and Teaching Materials are considered as the most important evaluation indicators. The promotion institutes or personnel of Information Technology Integrated Instruction used to be determined by volunteers who were then inspected, as it was supposed that volunteers would present higher motivation. Nonetheless, a lot of promotion institutes and personnel voluntarily participating in trainings did not really agree with Information Technology Integrated Instruction, but revealed other considerations. In this case, it could not be anticipated that teachers would accept and use technology in classes for changing the instruction. To avoid Information Technology Integrated Instruction being over-promoted, the relevant sectors should consider having the teachers who present higher tendency toward innovation contact with Information Technology Integrated Instruction so as to accelerate the promotion. In regard to Teaching Materials, specifically designed materials are more convenient for teachers implementing Information Technology Integrated Instruction that teachers would not spend too much time on integrating information technology into the courses. To make certain that software manufactures would be able to create developmentally appropriate materials for young children s nurturing and constructing knowledge and their interests in learning diverse possibilities, it is recommended that Information Technology materials needs to be developed corresponding to the Developmentally Appropriately Practice Curriculum, and further, could be practical and achieve the instructional objectives, as Information Technology Integrated Instruction aims to assist teachers in more effective instruction, that teachers intention of Information Technology Integrated Instruction would be enhanced. For instance, the authorities should emphasize the development and promotion of multiple learning model, such as Howard Gardner s multiple-intelligence model: linguistic, logical-mathematical, Visual-spatial, Musical, Bodily-kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, and Naturalist talent. Also the Instructional Resource Database with long-term planning and implementation needs to be taken into consideration in the future. Children s Learning Effectiveness is regarded as the most stressed dimension for Information Technology Integrated Instruction for Early Childhood Education in Taiwan. And only with the school, the parents support and the teachers curriculum scaffolding, children s learning attitude appropriately and positively develops. REFERENCE 1. Ayas, C. (2006). An examination of the relationship between the integration of technology into social studies and constructivist pedagogies. The Turkish Online J. Edu. Tech., 5(1), 14-25. 2. Chang, Kuo-en (2012). Connotation of information-integrated instruction from the aspect of the development of learning technology. Taipei County Edu., 41, 16-25. 3. Chang, Chien-hui (2011). Factors Affecting Teachers Use of Technology in Teaching: A case study. Taipei County Edu., 41, 16-25. 4. Chang, Kuang-I (2010). A study of teaching-relevant capitals, teaching belief, classroom management strategies and teaching performances. J. Natl. HsinChu Teachers College, 17, 23-50. 5. Chien, Mao-Faand Liu, Shiang-Chuan (2010). Computer Conference Delphi Survey and the Applications to Education. Inform. and Edu., 35, 6-11.

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