TEACHER EDUCATORS' TECHNOLOGY DECISIONS AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH THEY MODEL TECHNOLOGIES FOR INCLUSIVE CLASSROOMS IN TEACHING METHOD COURSES

Author

Gilbert Kalonde, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

5-1-2014

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Curriculum and Instruction

First Advisor

McIntyre, John

Second Advisor

Mumba, Frackson

Abstract

The purpose of this study was threefold; (1) to identify instructional technologies teacher educators use in teaching methods courses, (2) to identify the factors that influence their decisions for using such technologies in teaching methods courses, and (3) to investigate the extent to which teacher educators address the use of technology in inclusion in teaching methods courses. In this study, thirty teacher educators responded to fourteen Likert Scale questions, seven open-ended questions, listed technologies they use in the methods courses, and 5 of the teacher educators responded to another seven interview questions. The study used a concurrent mixed methods research design and used t-test, analysis of variances and Wilcoxon to analyze quantitative data. For qualitative data, collected through the Open-ended Questionnaire and Technology Inventory Checklist and the semi-structured interview responses were analyzed using open-coding. The results showed that teacher educators do use several technologies. However, the technologies they use are mostly instructional technologies and not inclusive technologies. In addition, the technologies used are more of content management like Desire to Learn and Black Board. Very few pedagogical and content delivery technologies are modeled to pre-service teachers. The study found that, regardless of teacher educators' experience, tenure and non-tenure, they all model technology similarly and not much variety of technology is used. They also minimally model inclusive technologies in the methods courses. The extent teacher educators model technology to pre-service teachers was low. While one third of the participants reported modeling technology for inclusion, the results also showed that two thirds of teacher educators modeled technology minimally. These results concurred with the results from the technology inventory list which showed that very few inclusive technologies are modeled to pre-service teachers in the methods courses. Study also found a non-significant effect on technology use and technologies used due gender, tenure, K-12 teaching experience or technology training. These results have an implication on how teacher educators integrate, use and model technology in the methods courses to pre-service teachers.