Exploration study on integration of educational technology in the curriculum of colleges of education in the Central region of Ghana

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine how five personal and institutional factors influenced the way tutors in the Colleges of Education (CoE) in the Central Region (CR) integrate technology, specifically computers and their accessories, and the internet into the curriculum. This study also, investigated how tutors’ individual personal factors are related to and interact with each other in the context of the Colleges of Education. Questionnaire and structured interview guide were the instruments for data collection. Data collection instruments were field tested and found significantly reliable. Further, in this exploratory study, attention was focused more on individual items than on scales of items in analyzing the Likert rating scales. Also, the interview responses were subsumed to complement the data collected by questionnaire. The study showed evidence that there were no technology integration plans in the three CoEs in the CR. Also, the tutors were both aware and had positive perceptions about integrating Educational Technology (ET) in the curriculum of CoEs. However, the background training of most of the tutors was not adequate and that affected their readiness to integrate educational technologies in their practice. Integration of educational technology was as well found to be affected by demographic characteristics of the tutors. It was recommended that Ministry of Education and state teacher education mandated institutions should take advantage of the high level of tutor awareness to formulate technology integration policies.