Barriers to the Use of Technology in Education and Methods to Address from Teachers' Perspectives

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility of the existence of barriers to the use of technology in education and identify the significant barriers so as to address them from female teachers' perspectives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. To achieve this, an online survey was designed and shared with 192 female teachers. The quantitative data was analyzed with descriptive statistics and t-test sample, while the qualitative data was analyzed inductively to be categorized according to existing and emerging themes. The results showed that seventeen significant barriers were found, including: lack of technological means; lack of incentives; lack of Internet; lack of classrooms or inadequate classrooms for the use of educational technology; hardware, network and software malfunctions; lack of maintenance; unavailability of updating and developing hardware, network, and software; the scarcity of technology-based curricula; lack of training courses; lack of participation of teachers and their supervisors in developing curriculum and educational technology; lack of technology matching students' levels; difficulty in using software and hardware based in foreign language; supervisors' poor guidance in the use and production of educational technology; short class times; and difficulty of educational technology production. Some recommendations that were suggested to address these significant barriers were as follows: providing hardware and Internet network in classrooms, intensification of training courses for female teachers in the use of technology, providing a suitable school environment for the use of technological means, the need to hold training courses to develop learners' skills in the use of technology, and interest in the maintenance and development of hardware, equipment, software, and networks periodically.