A study on the constraints for teachers in Hong Kong primary schools of using ICT in teaching (Planning)

According to the source of literature review, we can establish the objective of the research to be done by our group, which is to study the constraints for teachers in Hong Kong primary schools of using ICT in teaching and try to find out the ways to reduce them.

Nowadays, IT technology has been widely used in many different aspects in Hong Kong society, such as trading, banking and logistics etc. However, the use of ICT in education is still not adapted by many aided and government primary schools. This leads to our research in finding out the possible reasons of this phenomenon, probing into the problems in the point of view of school, teachers, students and parents concerning the issue of using ICT in teaching and learning and trying to find out how to relief the problems.

Our research will be split into three parts. First of all is “information collection”. Things to be done in this part are to collect information using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The information to be collected are, for example, the frequency of using ICT in teaching(1), teachers’ skills in using common ICT applications and the activities carried out in the classroom using ICT(1) etc. They can be obtained by, quantitatively, using questionnaires(1) that have to be done by school principals and teachers. Qualitatively, information can be collected by having interviews with school principals, teachers(1) and parents, observing the ICT facilities and infrastructure(1), and also how teachers use ICT in teaching.

The second part of our research is “result analysis”. This part is to analyze and summarize the results obtained from questionnaires and interviews, and the records of observations. The constraints and problems that are generally encountered by schools, teachers and parents can then be found out. We can use the findings to pinpoint on solving the problems through literature reading and suggestions of the education practitioners.

Last but not least, the third part of the research is “discovering other constraints of using ICT in education”. This part is to list out other constraints of using ICT in education and how to reduce the effect mentioned in sources other than the ones obtained through questionnaires, interviews and observations, for example essays and personal experience. The issues that can be probed into are, for instance, underdeveloped educational philosophy(1) (Ertmer 2005), inadequate practices(1) (Ertmer 2005), not enough time to provide curriculum-related support(1) (Tondeur et al. 2008a) and lack of ICT resources etc.

Source of literature review:
From ICT coordination to ICT integration: a longitudinal case study (J. Tondeur, M. Coopert and C.P. Newhouset)(1)