Afghanistan chemistry lecturers’ knowledge and attitude toward using educational technology in the class

Abstract

The education system must be upgraded according to today's needs and requirements in line with the fourth industrial revolution. Therefore, education 4.0 need to be introduced to overcome the challenges that arise from industrial revolution. The main feature of Education 4.0 is technology integration in teaching and learning. This also implies higher education. Therefore, lecturers in universities also need to integrate the technology into their classes. The integration starts with lecturers because they are the ones who will design the teaching and learning. Their knowledge and attitudes will reflect their implementation in the class. Hence, lecturers’ knowledge and attitudes towards using educational technology need to study. This study schemed to determine the Afghanistan chemistry lecturers' level of knowledge and attitudes toward using educational technology in the class and how their level of knowledge and attitudes affect the level of using educational technology. The study utilized a quantitative approach. The instruments used are attitude and TPACK survey questionnaires. The questionnaires were validated by experts and after the pilot test, the reliability of Cronbach's alpha value is 0.9. Then, the questionnaire was distributed as both hard copy and soft copy via online google form among 154 Afghanistan chemistry lecturers and was selected through the random sampling method. The data was analyzed using the SPSS version 25. The results of this study indicated that the level of using educational technology is at high level but 70.1% of respondents are using technology traditionally. The result also showed the moderate level of lecturers' knowledge (M=3.0) and positive attitude(M=3.1) toward using educational technology in the class. Furthermore, the p value (p=.023) indicated, significant relationship between lecturers' attitudes and the level of using educational technology in the class. On the other hand, there was not significant relationship between lectures knowledge and the level of using educational technology (p=0.25). As an implication, the result of this study is very vital for Afghanistan universities to find out the effective way of using education technology in the classroom. Further researches are needed to be conducted in order to deeply study with qualitative method to find out the common internal and external factors to the teachers toward using educational technology in teaching and learning chemistry in Afghanistan Universities.