January 2012 Volume 15 Number 1 - Educational Technology ...

As Rogers (1995) postulates in his theory of Diffusion of Innovation, technology adopters’ perceptions are
indispensible to the innovation-decision process. He suggests that studies should focus on users’ attitudes toward
ICT integration in the early stages of technology implementation. Perceptions (or beliefs or intentions) are being
considered the cognitive components of attitudes and the literature shows that pre-service teachers’ perceptions
influence intentions which in turn influence behaviour (Ma et al., 2005; Dillon and Gayford, 1997). For instance,
according to the model proposed by Ma et al. (2005), the teacher’s intention to use ICT can be predicted by his/her
subjective perceptions of its usefulness. As a general rule, and to expound the relationship of perceptions-intentionsbehaviour,
it can be stressed that the more favorable perceptions are, the stronger the intentions to perform the
behaviour in question will be (Ajzen, 2007). These strong links were also investigated by researchers in many other
studies (Norton et al., 2000; Hu et al., 2003) and a high degree of overlap was found between the scores measuring
participants’ perceptions and those measuring their intentions and the positive beliefs and intentions expressed by
both scores indicated that the participants were expected to carry out their intentions .
The present study relies mainly on prospective EFL teachers because “the field of foreign language education has
always been in the forefront of the use of technology to facilitate the language education process” (Lafford and
Lafford, 1997). Moreover, language teachers have identified various uses of ICT in the language class, including the
use of the web as a tool for obtaining information, project writing, communication among a group of students
through e-mail or an online chat-room, web-based course programs and publishing project work (Lee, 2000; Alvine,
2000; Lee, 2003). However, the integration of ICT into instruction has been a major challenge for every teacher
because they are expected to be capable of utilizing the extensive capacities of ICT to create more effective teaching
and learning activities. If we have any hope of enabling future language teachers to use ICT tools in ways that will
capture new learning styles and create pathways for learners living in a digital era, ICT professional development
intentions should be met by diagnosing distance learners’ needs in this respect and accordingly ‘re-tooling’ with
infrequent curriculum integration.
Therefore, the impetus of this research is to explore the distance prospective EFL teachers’ perceptions of ICT
integration by utilizing a questionnaire consisting of questions that are somewhat related to the technology
acceptance model (TAM) which was originated by Davis in 1986 (Davis, 1989). The model indicates that perceived
usefulness and perceived ease of use are two specific determinants of a user’s acceptance of a technology. Perceived
usefulness indicates the user’s perception of the extent that the technology will develop his job performance. This
includes decreasing the time for performing the job, more productivity and accuracy. Perceived ease of use refers to
the user’s perception of amount of the effort necessary for using the system or the extent to which a user believes that
employing a specific technology will be easy. By means of an interview, the study also unearths factors impeding
distance prospective EFL teachers’ positive beliefs and their future expectations related to ICT professional
development.
Significance of the study
This research study is significant for two main reasons. First, it is increasingly important to direct our attention to the
centroid shift observed in the field of foreign language teaching through the technology, from the paradigm of
CALL-based English language teaching to the new forms of multiple literacies, highlighting the role of ICT (Kellner,
2000; Warschauer, 2000; 2004). Second, teachers’ attitudes towards ICT integration has been a fashionable research
topic investigated in many studies in the last decade (Albirini, 2006; Tondeur, van Braak & Valcke, 2007; Aydın,
2007; Teo, Lee, & Chai, 2008). However, distance pre-service EFL teachers’ attitudes towards ICT integration have
been neglected in Turkey, where the major educational reforms have been made specific to ICT integration since
1997. Thus, the present study was intended not only to shed more light on distance pre-service EFL teachers’
attitudes toward ICT integration but also to reveal the factors obstructing their positive attitudes. In the following
section, distance education in Turkey will be introduced to provide international readers with a basic understanding
of the research context.
Distance education in Turkey
ICT has been increasingly used in education and has brought up some new disciplines, or study fields, and distance
education (DE) is one of the latest forms of education that basically depends on ICT use. Since DE is a modern
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