Chapter 7 General Findings from Secondary School Sector
7.2 Teacher enablement
questionnaire data that the junior secondary classes seem to have more project work than the senior classes, probably because of the latter concentrating more on preparation for exams. It is of particular interest to note that students often reported that when they are using computers at home they are frequently doing several school-related and entertainment-related activities at the same time, such as doing homework while listening to music and participating in ICQ (some of which is also for the purpose of doing homework or sharing information and which, the students claimed, often saves them the need to have face-to-face meetings to discuss homework assignments). This suggests, therefore, that the picture of students’ home use of IT might not be as bad as it seems at face value and that they are not using it solely for entertainment. Whether and how this multi-tasking would affect their learning is something worth exploring.
That older students had placed more importance on using computers for communication is also supported by the data about numbers of email accounts and personal websites (Students’ Questionnaire items 18 and 19). The proportions of students with at least one email account are 94.7%, 95.5% and 99% of S2, S4 and S6 students, respectively. 65.7%-76.9% of the students have more than one e-mail account. On the other hand, personal websites were not commonly reported by secondary school students. The majority of students in all three grade levels reported that they do not have any personal websites (66.5%, 67.5% and 72.2% for S2, S4 and S6 students respectively).
It can be noted that the usage patterns indicated by these data are similar to those shown by the students who completed the IT Activity Daily Log, as reported in Section 7.5. Parent data can also be used to triangulate the students’ home use of computers. The responses to Parents’ Questionnaire item 4b corroborate the students’ claims that the most common activity is entertainment, followed by searching for information on the Internet, communication through email or ICQ. There was a successive increase in all these activities from S2 to S6 in the proportions participating.
Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector
Table 7.9: Highest level of IT competence attained by teachers (Teachers’ Questionnaire, Q. 21)
Highest Level attained % Valid % Cum. valid%
AIT 4.3 4.6 4.6
UIT 29.7 31.8 36.4
IIT 49.4 52.9 89.3
BIT 10.0 10.7 100.0
Missing 6.6 -- --
Total 100 100.0 --
N=6497
However, when teachers were asked to rate themselves with respect to their stage of adopting/using IT (Table 7.10, Teachers’ Questionnaire item 1g) only 73.6% rated themselves comfortable/confident, competent or creative – interestingly a lower percentage than the school heads’ self-ratings (School Heads’ Questionnaire item 4) of 84.6%. This suggests that the teachers’ self-perceptions of their competence do not match the level of competence implied by the level of training they have attained.
This may be at least partly explained by some of the comments from the school heads’ and teachers’
focus group interviews, which suggested that the quality of the BIT training varied quite considerably from provider to provider. Other contributing factors suggested in the interviews included that in the training courses many teachers learned to use software applications that were not available in their schools, so they soon forgot. There were also comments that some of the training did not match all teachers’ needs – some were overwhelmed with skills that they would never use while it was insufficient for others. In addition, they commented that the emphasis in the training programmes was on technological skill rather than integrating IT use into the curriculum or teaching.
Table 7.10: School Heads’ and Teachers’ self ratings on stage of adopting or using IT (School Heads’
Questionnaire, Q. 4; Teachers’ Questionnaire, Q. 1g)
Stage Description Head
(N = 365)
Teacher (N = 6312)
% Cum. % % Cum. %
6 Creative (can use it effectively for
teaching/administration and integrate into work in creative way)
11.2 11.2 10.3 10.3
5 Competent (able to apply appropriately to conduct/assist teaching)
45.2 56.4 38.8 49.1
4 Comfortable/confident (comfortable and confident in using it for certain tasks)
28.2 84.6 24.5 73.6
3 Beginner (beginning to understand procedures and able to use for certain tasks)
11.8 96.4 20.2 93.8
2 Novice (learning the basic skills but basically not confident and often encounter difficulties)
2.7 99.2 4.5 98.3
1 Non-user (aware of availability but rarely/never use it)
0.8 100 1.7 100
Total 100 - 100 -
When we look at the areas of IT use in which the secondary school teachers have reported themselves to have achieved basic proficiency or above for use in their teaching (Teachers’ Questionnaire item 13), we find that the highest are word processing (93.3%), Internet (80.5%), spreadsheet (72.9%), communication (71.4%), computer operation (70.5%) and presentation software (69.8%). These were also amongst the skills given the highest ratings in the Preliminary Study. It is speculated that these may be tools that are often used by teachers for their teaching preparation and teacher-centred approaches to learning. On the other hand, the competence levels reported in using tools, such as simulations, databases, graphic and design tools are all relatively low, with less than 51% reporting competence to use these in their teaching. It is also interesting to note that only 54.1% of teachers reported that they are proficient in applying/integrating IT into their subject curricula, even despite the fact that 89.3% of them have attained IIT.
In the teacher focus-group interviews, a number of teachers mentioned that after receiving their
training they felt they had reached a comfortable level of competence in using hardware and software.
Nevertheless, it was noted during the classroom observations that a good number of the teachers observed were still not quite skilful with the technology and some had to call in technicians to help them with setting up. However, in the focus group interviews, several teachers expressed the view that they do not need such a high level of technical knowledge but rather to focus on specific uses in their teaching. As was noted in Chapter 6, the EMB document analysis revealed that the EMB did provide some courses in pedagogical IT use that were well-received by those teachers who participated in them, but there were relatively few teachers who did participate in these.
As for the kind of professional development preferred, the majority of teachers in the focus group interviews expressed a preference for experience sharing sessions with other teachers, particularly those from the same subject area:
It will be worthwhile to think about training per subject and the role of experience sharing, say to have some experienced teachers in different subjects to get involved in training to share their experience, or even let them lead or design some workshops for teachers of the same subjects. I think the result will be more effective.
It would be better to have teachers who have substantial teaching experience and good pedagogical knowledge as the trainers than to have people from computer firms. Trainers from computer companies are more focused on technical issues.
One school that was visited had a school-based professional development programme in which competent teachers conducted lunch-time sharing workshops for their colleagues about their use of IT for different purposes. The teachers interviewed in that school said that they welcomed this system.
Another good example of experience sharing was seen in a school in which the principal arranges for individual or small groups of staff members to visit and observe good practices in other schools if they are having difficulty implementing IT in their own classrooms. This has proven to be an effective strategy because the teachers come back and attempt to implement what they have seen in the other schools.
As was also mentioned in the Primary School Sector report in Chapter 6, this same issue about the need for experience sharing as a means of professional development was reiterated in the interviews with representatives from the tertiary sector and also with some of the EMB representatives interviewed.
7.2.2 Participation in IT-related development activities and usefulness of this participation It is encouraging to note that 96% of schools reported that they had an IT Plan/Policy on teacher training/development (School IT Survey item 1h). Development activities provided by schools and the EMB were the most common, with more than 92% of secondary school heads and teachers having participated in school-based development activities since the inception of the Five-Year Strategy (Table 7.11, School Heads’ Questionnaire item 3 and Teachers’ Questionnaire item 4). This is considerably higher than the 68% of teachers who reported having participated in school-based training courses in the Preliminary Study. 81.7% of school heads but only 55.8% of teachers have received direct training from EMB, which is a similar figure to that reported in the Preliminary Study.
There was very little difference reported in the mean effectiveness of the various providers, with all means ranging from 2.5-2.9 for school heads and 2.3-2.5 for teachers on a scale from 0 to 4 where 0 represented ‘not very effective’ and 4 represented ‘very effective’. This suggests that the secondary school heads and teachers perceived the provisions to be reasonably effective. Participation in staff development activities provided by the HKedCity was reported as low (only around 20% of both heads and teachers) compared to 27.8% of teachers in the Preliminary Study although this could depend upon the actual number of activities organised by HKedCity that these data do not report.
Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector
Table 7.11: School Heads’ and Teachers’ participation in professional training/development activities and rating on effectiveness (School Heads’ Questionnaire, Q. 3; Teachers’ Questionnaire, Q.
4)
School Heads Teachers
Rating on effectiveness (0 – 4)
Rating on effectiveness (0 – 4) Institute
% N
Mean SD N
% N
Mean SE N
a 95.0 357 2.9 0.7 334 92.9 6313 2.5 0.02 5778
b 81.7 349 2.7 0.6 280 55.8 6114 2.3 0.01 3376
c 21.1 304 2.7 0.6 62 18.8 5961 2.4 0.02 1083
d 49.2 323 2.6 0.7 155 46.0 6050 2.5 0.02 2728
e 27.3 300 2.6 0.6 80 20.6 5976 2.4 0.02 1185
f 51.3 306 2.5 0.7 151 38.9 5822 2.4 0.02 2200
a. Your school b. EMB (Formerly ED) c. HKedCity
d. Tertiary institutions
e. Non-profit making organizations f. Commercial organizations
The teachers were asked to indicate the extent of their roles in activities for promoting IT in teaching (Teachers’ Questionnaire item 18). About 37.5% said they have occasionally or always participated in planning or promoting the use of IT in teaching or the integration of IT into the curriculum – which shows some promise that a bit more than one-third of the teachers are beginning to take some leadership role. However, only about 28.7% said they have made suggestions occasionally or always about the purchase of software. It does not seem to be conducive to encouraging teachers to use the software effectively in their classes if they have not been instrumental in making the choice of what to use. Only about 17.1% had participated in research on school-based initiatives. Other roles were reported as occurring infrequently: 75.3% said they rarely/never organised/arranged staff to participate in IT training, 80% rarely/never provided/arranged technical support in school, 81.2% rarely/never handled tasks related to the maintenance of IT facilities/resources, and 85.5% rarely/never organised exchange programmes to share experiences with other schools relating to IT in education. When we look at teachers’ reported roles in helping colleagues to solve problems encountered in using IT in their teaching (Teachers’ Questionnaire item 17) we can see evidence of quite active participation, with 65.1% saying they had done this occasionally or always and only 5.8% saying they had never done this.
7.2.3 Motivation for acquiring IT skills
The main motivations that the secondary teachers identified for learning IT skills (Teachers’
Questionnaire item 15) were to improve their teaching (indicated by 78.1%) followed by quest for knowledge (62.7%), the desire to apply IT in teaching (60.2%) and to acquire a basic life skill (59.7%).
A minority indicated they had been motivated by extrinsic factors such as promotion prospects or the influence of others, and only 30.2% were motivated by EMB’s demand. It is also interesting to note that 46.7% and 47.4% were motivated to learn and apply IT (Teachers’ Questionnaire item 16) because of their school head’s request or expectation, thus suggesting that the school leader’s expectation contributes to teachers’ motivation to participate even though it is not the most important one. It is also interesting to note that only 32.7% of the secondary teachers were motivated by students’ requests or expectations to apply IT in their teaching.
There is some inconsistency (Tables 7.12 and 7.13) between the high percentage (78.1%) of teachers who reported they were motivated to learn IT skills to improve their teaching, and the relatively low percentage (39.5%) saying that student accomplishment (including enhancing quality of learning) was a motivator for them when it came to actually applying it in their teaching (Teachers’ Questionnaire item 16).
In fact, the main motivator for applying IT in teaching was reported to be their growing maturity in IT
literacy (62.7%), thus suggesting that as their competence and confidence mature they are more willing to attempt to put IT into practice. The second most commonly reported reason was because it has become a trend in education (48.2%), followed by school head’s request/expectation (47.4%).
Table 7.12: Factors motivating teachers to learn IT skills (Teachers’ Questionnaire, Q. 15)
Factors %
Quest for knowledge 62.7
Improve teaching 78.1
Compliments from others 16.6
Apply in teaching 60.2
School/head’s request/expectation 46.7
Promotion prospect 7.7
Basic life-skill 59.7
EMB’s demand 30.2
Note: N = 6497. Multiple responses items
Table 7.13: Factors motivating teachers to apply IT in teaching (Teachers’ Questionnaire, Q. 16)
Factors %
Maturing in IT literacy 62.7
Students’ request/expectation 32.7
School/head’s request/expectation 47.4
Students accomplishment (including enhancing quality of learning) 39.5
Colleagues’ encouragement 15.0
ITEd policy from government 33.6
Parent’s request/expectation 6.2
Trend in education 48.2
Note: N = 6497. Multiple responses items
7.2.4 Impact of ITEd on teachers
Generally, school heads seem to be more optimistic/positive about the impact of IT on education than the teachers. On School Heads’ Questionnaire item 9b, the secondary school heads regarded the greatest impacts of IT on teachers’ teaching as being increased IT knowledge (100% rating agree or strongly agree), encouragement for teachers to apply IT in their teaching (92.6%), making school administration/management work more convenient for teachers (92.4%) and enhancing co-operation among teachers (85.8%), all with mean ratings of 3 or higher (Table 7.14). The secondary school teachers (Table 7.15, Teachers’ Questionnaire item 19) rated the highest impact as enhanced teaching effectiveness (67.6%) and, to a lesser extent, increased awareness of the outside world (51.4%). 63.7%
of the school heads thought that the use of IT had encouraged teachers to make more use of student-centred learning and 77.1% thought that it strengthened communication between teachers and students, but the teachers themselves seemed to be much less sure about this, with less than one third suggesting it improved communication and collaboration, even with their own colleagues or with their students. A small percentage of school heads agreed or strongly agreed that there have been negative impacts such as teachers’ stress levels (28.6%), self-esteem (2.8%) and confidence (11.2%). A fairly significant proportion of teachers perceived some kind of negative impact on themselves in terms of less time for class preparation (51.3%), less time for student contact (43.9%) and exhaustion or information overload (38.7%). Generally their perception of the impact on collaboration with others is rather low (mostly less than 20%). Whereas 41.4% of school heads agreed or strongly agreed that strengthening communication between teachers and parents was an impact, the corresponding proportion of teachers rating this as an impact was only 16.5%. Generally teachers tended to have a higher awareness of these negative impacts while the school heads expressed more positive views about the impact of IT, which suggests there may be a mismatch in the two groups’ perceptions of the stress and time constraints that are really imposed on teachers by the introduction of IT.
Chapter 7: General Findings from Secondary School Sector
Table 7.14: School heads’ perception of impact of ITEd on teachers, based on their experience of promoting IT in Education (School Heads’ Questionnaire, Q. 9b)
SD N % of school heads choosing the option
Impact Mean
(0-4) Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral/
uncertain
Disagree Strongly disagree Enhanced co-operation among
teachers
3.0 0.6 366 16.7 69.1 13.7 0.6 0.0
Increased IT knowledge 3.5 0.5 369 52.0 48.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Encouraged teachers to adopt student-centered mode of learning
2.7 0.7 367 9.5 54.2 31.9 3.8 0.5
Strengthened communication among teachers and students
2.9 0.7 367 18.8 58.3 21.3 1.6 0.0
Increased interactions with people outside the school, broadening their professional vision
2.9 0.6 368 14.4 61.1 23.1 1.4 0.0
Teachers are not confident in using IT appropriately
1.3 0.8 365 1.1 10.1 20.3 58.9 9.6
Teachers find using IT stressful 1.8 1.0 368 1.4 27.2 27.2 37.5 6.8
Lowered self-esteem and professional confidence
1.0 0.7 367 0.3 2.5 16.6 59.7 21.0
Strengthened communication among teachers
2.9 0.6 367 14.2 62.1 22.3 1.1 0.3
Encouraged teachers to apply IT in regular teaching
3.1 0.5 367 20.7 71.9 6.5 0.8 0.0
Strengthened communication between teachers and parents
2.3 0.8 367 4.9 36.5 47.4 10.6 0.5
Made school admin/management work more convenient for teachers
3.2 0.6 367 28.1 64.3 7.1 0.5 0.0
Table 7.15: Teachers’ perceptions of impact of ITEd on themselves since the introduction of ITEd (Teachers’ Questionnaire, Q. 19)
SE N % of teachers choosing the option
Impact Mean
(0-4) Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral/
uncertain
Disagree Strongly disagree
Enhanced teaching effectiveness 2.7 0.01 6332 7.3 60.3 26.4 4.9 1.1
Exhausted/information overload 2.2 0.01 6038 4.5 34.2 43.3 16.8 1.2
Less time for class preparation 2.4 0.01 6317 10.9 40.4 32.3 15.1 1.3
Less time for contact with students 2.3 0.01 6300 8.7 35.2 35.4 19.1 1.7 Increased awareness about outside
world
2.4 0.01 6315 5.9 45.5 34.9 11.7 2.0
Increased awareness about local/Mainland society
2.3 0.01 6305 5.4 40.5 38.6 13.0 2.5
Enlarged social circle 1.8 0.01 6291 2.3 17.9 45.6 27.2 6.9
More collaboration with colleagues 2.0 0.02 6306 1.9 28.6 43.7 21.3 4.5 More collaboration with teachers in
other schools
1.7 0.02 6296 1.3 13.9 49.1 28.2 7.5
More collaboration with other organizations
1.8 0.02 6297 1.1 15.8 48.8 26.8 7.5
Strengthened communication with parents
1.7 0.02 6291 1.2 15.3 46.2 28.3 9.0
Strengthened communication with students
2.2 0.02 6307 3.9 39.8 36.6 15.2 4.5
Strengthened communication with school
2.1 0.02 6300 3.4 33.9 40.9 16.5 5.3
There are only very small differences in the mean ratings on the corresponding item regarding the teachers’ perceptions of impact of ITEd on themselves in the Preliminary Study.
7.2.5 Obstacles and difficulties faced by teachers
The difficulties described by secondary school heads, teachers and IT team members are similar (School Heads Questionnaire item 18, IT Team Members’ Questionnaire item 4 and Teachers’
Questionnaire item 6). The main problems cited by the school heads were teacher workload (94.3%
citing this as a problem), teachers lacking skill to apply IT to education (86.2%), lack of suitable educational software and teaching resources (89.3%) (also cited as a major obstacle in the Preliminary Study) and the demand for teachers to spend time preparing their own materials detracting from the quality of their teaching (88.1%). This issue also came up in the school heads’ interviews, with many commenting that there is too much duplicated effort with all schools going through the same exercise of finding, evaluating and deploying software rather than having enough unified support from a central authority to undertake these roles. The teachers commented that they need teaching materials, but they complained that much of the publishers’ software is just text based and does not meet their needs.
65.3% of the school heads also indicated that the existing curriculum is not conducive to IT applications inside the classroom, which was also supported by 57.1% of the teachers, although relatively few rated this as a serious or very serious problem. The major difficulties encountered by teachers when using IT in their teaching were heavy workload (identified by 85.3%) and the time required to prepare materials detracting from their teaching (77.9%). The workload problem was also rated highly by the IT team members (82% rating their own workload as a difficulty and 87.8% rating their colleagues’ workloads as an inhibiting factor). Quite a high percentage of IT team members (83%) regarded teachers’ lack of skill or knowledge as an obstacle, but only 65.4% of the teachers themselves said this was an obstacle. The discrepancy suggests that the school heads’ and IT team members’
perception of teachers’ lack of skill or knowledge as a factor inhibiting IT use in class is not shared by as many of the teachers. Even so, given the substantial percentages of teachers who have attained IIT, as reported above, 65.4% is still quite high, although it must be noted that in both cases relatively few think of it as a serious/very serious problem. In a similar vein, lack of interest was rated as an obstacle by 76.9% of the school heads and 79% of the IT team members but only 40% of the teachers. While a high percentage of school heads regard lack of software and teaching resources as a problem, fewer IT team members (75.1%) and teachers (69.9%) see this as an obstacle. This is still a high percentage, but the data suggest that the highest percentages of teachers see the real reasons for not using IT as being the workload and time issues, more than their lack of skills, interest or resources.
In the focus group interviews the main obstacles identified by the teachers echoed some of the issues discussed above, including lack of resources, lack of time and excessive workload. Another obstacle that was raised in the interviews is that, especially in poorer socio-economic areas, most of the teachers’ time is spent in tackling disciplinary and classroom management issues, hence IT is given less priority. Some teachers said that one of their main reasons for not applying IT is the exam-oriented environment and tight schedule under which they revert to using the teaching methods that do not require too much preparation or collection of data/information, since their students’ prime concern is getting good examination results. It is apparent, then, that the ‘backwash effect’ of the public examination system and the curriculum on teaching also has an effect on the use of IT in teaching.