A STUDY ON SCIENCE TEACHERS' ATTITUDES TOWARD INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN EDUCATION

Integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into education has been an important concern in many countries. Recently, Turkish Ministry of Education has also done great efforts and major financial investments to implement ICT into teaching and learning environments. However, as in many developing countries, ICT tools are provided to teachers without considering their attitudes toward ICT. The purpose of this study was to reveal Turkish primary science teachers' attitudes toward ICT in education and then explore the relationship between teachers' attitudes and factors which are related to teachers' personal characteristics (gender, age, computer ownership at home, and computer experience). In order to collect data, an instrument (STATICTE) was developed by researchers and administered to 1071 science teachers almost uniformly distributed in 7 geographic regions of Turkey. In data analyses, descriptive statistics were used to describe and summarize the properties of the mass of data collected from the respondents. The results indicate that Turkish science teachers have positive attitudes toward ICT and although teachers' attitudes toward ICT do not differ regarding gender, it differs regarding age, computer ownership at home and computer experience. It is hoped that the outcomes of this study can be used in shaping innovational practices in the Turkish Educational System.