(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 9, No. 4, April 2011
Internet Adoption in Indonesian Education
Are Female Teachers Able to Use and Anxious of Internet?
Farida
1
, Sri Wulan Windu Ratih
2
, Betty Yudha Sulistiowati
3
, Budi Hermana
4
1,2,3
Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology,
4
Faculty of Economics, Gunadarma UniversityJl. Margonda Raya No.100, Depok City, West Java, Indonesia
1
farida@staff.gunadarma.ac.id,
2
sriwulanwr@staff.gunadarma.ac.id
3
betty_yudha@staff.gunadarma.ac.id,
4
bhermana@staff.gunadarma.ac.id
Abstract
— This research aims to determine the patterns of internet usage behavior and perceptions of the internet amongfemale teachers in elementary schools, in terms of InternetAnxiety and Internet Self-Efficacy. The level of adoption ismeasured by two groups of measurement they are the internetadopter and non-adopters, and also adopters, potential adopters,and non-adopters. The object of research was taken by samplingfrom 264 female teachers who teach in Jakarta and outsideJakarta. The result shows that Internet adopter groups tend toshow higher perceptions of the Internet usefulness, the practicaluse, technical understanding, and social influence, while groupsof potential adopters and non-adopters tend to exhibit a highlevel of anxiety about the internet. The level of adoption onInternet usage can be predicted by using the Internet anxiety andInternet self-efficacy with prediction rate of 58.8 percent forthree-level scale adoption of Internet adopters, potentialadopters, and non-adopters, and 71.9 percent for two-scale of theInternet adopter and non-adopters. Teachers who teach inprivate schools show higher level of internet adoption than thosein public schools. Another result from the research is the femaleteachers working outside Jakarta are more anxious of internetusage than those who work in Jakarta.
Keywords
:
Internet Anxiety, Internet Self-Efficacy, Digital Divide,Gender Issues
I.
I
NTRODUCTION
Information and communication technologies could give amajor boost to the economic, political and socialempowerment of women, and the promotion of gender equality [1]. The formation of gender stereotypes in activitiesassociated with ICTs is a complex process, and of gendered patterns of use is influenced by many factors and welldocumented in education in the West. It is worrying to seethese patterns being produced in societies in which ICTs are arecent introduction [2]. Many developing nations have failedto incorporate a resource in great abundance, their women, touse these new technologies to greatest advantage [3]. 1995Beijing Declaration stated that ensure women's equal access toeconomic resources, including land, credit, science andtechnology, vocational training, information, communicationand markets, as a means to further the advancement andempowerment of women and girls, including through theenhancement of their capacities to enjoy the benefits of equalaccess to these resources, inter alia, by means of internationalcooperation [4].The rate of Internet adoption has grown for both genders between the years 1991- 2001, although the rate of women’sadoption is lower than that of men. The adoption’s rate of theInternet for women in the year 2001 was around 40% whilemen’s percentage of Internet adoption was around 55% [5].According to [6], The WWW is the fastest- growing segmentof the Internet, growing at rate of 3,000 per cent every year. Itallows exchange of multimedia data (text, audio, video,graphics and animation) between users connected to theInternet using hypertext links. The Internet Society expects120 million hosts to be connected to the Internet by the end of the decade, up from 9.5 million in 1996. And the informationrevolution offers both opportunities and challenges to women.Indonesia is one country in Asia that has the level of ICT penetration that is still relatively low compared to the averageof Asia and the World. However, in 2010 Indonesia hasestablished a significant increase for the indicator NetworkedReadiness Index (RDI) based on the Global InformationTechnology Report 2009-2010 published by the WorldEconomic Forum [7]. Reference [8] stated that Indonesiaranks 67th, significantly improving from last year. Asia’sthird-largest economy delivers a mixed performance, withrankings in the different pillars ranging from a 23rd place inindividual readiness to a mediocre 100th position in theinfrastructure environment. Indonesia showed a high value onReadiness Index and ranks in 43
rd
of 133 countries, but for Individual readiness sub index, Indonesia ranked better andranks in 23
rd
. The problem is Indonesia still faces obstacles toinfrastructure environment that is only rank in 100
th
. In theAsia-Pacific region, Accessing information from the Web isinfrequent, as is advocacy via the Internet. The reasons for notoptimizing the ICT tools include technical problemsassociated with file transmission, connections anddisconnections due to poor infrastructure, high usage costs and budgetary constraints, lack of awareness of potential uses and benefits, and inadequate skills to exploit the possibilities [1].There are still some formidable barriers to overcome inincreasing women’s use of the Internet and ensuring that they participate fully in the Information Society [9]. Ministry of
This research funded by Ministry of National Education of Indonesia
78http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ISSN 1947-5500
(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 9, No. 4, April 2011
Women Empowerment of Indonesia stated that the field of technology, especially ICT, is still very close to the identity of men while women are often just as objects [10]. It is necessaryto make women's literacy and information technology toimprove the potential of the nation. The number of women inIndonesia almost half of population who are potential if properly empowered. For example, ICT closer to the womanfor a great potential not only as objects. Women have beenexcluded from important aspects of society and governance for many centuries; information society technologies couldreinforce that marginalization if women do not master thetechnology and speak out about the future of the InformationSociety [9]. According to [11], It cannot be seen that boys andgirls have different interests in the Internet technology in practice. But boys talk about their knowledge to a greater extent, and this interplays with their reflections about theInternet's reliability.Currently, the Education sector in Indonesia has received amajor concern of the government budget. Education sector hasgot at least 20% of government budget. The government hasdecided to enactment of the certification of teachers andlecturers who accompanied also by granting allowances fromthe government. Education in Indonesia, including sectors thatare relatively advanced in terms of application of ICT, both inthe use of ICT in teaching-learning process, as well asindividual use by students and teachers. Ministry of NationalEducation reported that in 2007 the number of school principals and teachers of elementary schools in Indonesia atthis time amounted to 1,386,676 people. There are morenumbers of principals and teachers in public schools thanthose in private schools that is 1,263,564 people compared to122,112 people. The number of elementary school teachers,are 1,239,154 people consisting of 747,036 female and492,118 male teachers. This figure shows that the number of female teachers are bigger than male teachers (the number female teachers is 60,29%).The data also shows that there are146,813 elementary schools throughout Indonesia.The ability and willingness of female teachers inelementary schools in using internet become a dilemma. Onthe one hand the development of internet encourages teacher to know and understand what the internet is,but on the other hand, the negative impact of internet can be a factor affectingthe perception and attitude in accepting the existence of theinternet. In addition, to control internet also requires a basicknowledge or skills of a technical nature. Success in using theinternet is influenced by the understanding and control somemedia support facilities such as internet connections, personalcomputers, and other pheriferals. According to [12], whileteacher age, gender and school level were not significant,teachers’ ratings indicated ICT activities and longer coursescontributed significantly to their professional renewal.An understanding of internet as a medium of informationrequires a basic knowledge of it. Thus, the level of concernabout the internet (internet-anxiety) and the ability of theknowledge and skills in internet usage (internet-self efficacy)were factors be suspected to affect the level of internetadoption by female teachers at the elementary school. Thisresearch aims to analyze their behavior toward the internetusage and influence in terms of internet-anxiety and self efficacy based on the level of internet adoption by femaleteachers in elementary schools in Jakarta and outside Jakarta.II.
THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK
A.
Internet and Woman in Education
Common claims that the Internet constitutes a masculine or contrarily a feminine environment are critically discussed, aswell as the cyber feminist contention that the Internet enablesnew identities not limited by gender. It is argued instead thatgender and the Internet are multidimensional concepts that arearticulated in complex and contradictory ways [13]. Accordingto [14], Various levels of gender disparity exist in the adoptionof the Internet. These gender disparities are functions of factors such as male-female cultural differences; differences inspecialization, preferences for jobs, and education; complexinteractions among the features of the Internet and gender; andexternal variables such as socio-cultural and economic factors.The sustained increase in the number of users of computersand Internet connections seems to indicate that the first digitaldivide can be resolved in the future. The second digital divide,related to the skills necessary to obtain all the benefits of access (digital literacy), affects women more than men [15].This difference in the ability of countries, regions, sectors andsocio-economic groups to access knowledge through ICTs,and to use them for a range of different purposes, has beencoined the “digital divide” or “information poverty” [1].Women and men allocate their time during the day differently,mostly for functional reasons but also partly as a resultdifferences in education level, work status and cultural valuesBut they both spend the same time on media and leisureactivities [5].Reference [16] stated that women and men differ in their perceptions but not use of E-mail. These findings suggest thatresearchers should include gender in IT diffusion modelsalong with other cultural effects. According to [17], adoptionof the Internet is very sensitive to cultural factors, since it is perceived in many traditional societies as a threat to thetraditional and well-established modes of doing things. In [18] stated that women tended to reflect on significant structural barriers, such public policies that failed to facilitate thedevelopment of the IT sector, gender discrimination byemployers, and training which provided them with insufficienttechnical skills to enable them to effectively perform in theworkplace. Men tended to report greater confidence in usingthe Internet and Women tended to hold less gender stereotyped attitudes about the relationship between computersand the Internet than did men [2].
79http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ISSN 1947-5500
(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,Vol. 9, No. 4, April 2011
Technology such as Information and CommunicationTechnology (ICT) is a potent force in driving economic,social, political and educational reforms. Education reform isoccurring throughout the world and one of the tenets of thereform is the introduction and integration of ICT in theeducation system [19]. The introduction of new informationtechnology in teaching and learning has impacted thetraditional classroom activities. The various technologiesgenerate a greater level of interaction between and amongteachers and students. They also help to enhance theeducational environment while providing enrichment in thelearning experience [20]. According to [21], the use of technology has not only created new opportunities within thetraditional classroom but has also served to expand learningexperiences beyond the popular notion of "classroom".Instruction on the Internet accentuates the 'Student as worker"and the "teacher as coach" paradigms. Teachers’ attitudestoward ICT are clearly multi-faceted and tend to become more positive due to ongoing, needs-based training across attitudinaltypes. Anxiety tends to be reduced rather quickly withmeaningful exposure to ICT. On the other hand,enthusiasm/acceptance of ICT and belief in the utility of ICTfor professional productivity is slower to evolve [22].One type of technology that is widely used in the teaching-learning process nowdays is internet or web technology. Profitorganizations and traditional institutions of higher educationhave developed and implemented web-based courses, thoughthey haven’t known exactly their effectiveness compared totraditional classroom teaching model. Virtual learningenvironments have recently become a viable educationalternative. Educators who intend to offer training in web- based virtual learning environments should consider a number of alternative courses of action aimed at increasing learner satisfaction with the process
[23]. In keeping with a socio-technical perspective of information system, it has been shownthat both technology characteristics (easy of finding and easyof understanding) and individual user characteristics (self efficacy and computer anxiety) influence perceived easy of use of web based learning technology [24].Along with word processing, Internet may be the mostvaluable medium of many computer technologies available toteachers and students. The kinds of teachers that are mostlikely (or in the case of math teachers, least likely) to be drawnto the Internet—(1) younger teachers, (2) teachers who areleaders in their profession, and (3) teachers with constructivist pedagogies [25]. Teachers who have been using ICTextensively in their teaching and professional tasks stilldemand for a wider range of training and support in this area.The eagerness to learn more and acquire further support ishigh among the teachers [26]. Along with changed studentand teacher roles, ICT is contributing to changing the wholestructure of schools [27].On the issue of technology integration in education, thereare considerable disparities between developed and developingcountries. Developed countries have more resources,knowledge, skills and experience than developing countries[19]. Exploring Digital Divide issues in the schools requireseducators to examine the access students have to technologyas well as the equity in the educational experiences studentshave with technology [28]. Teachers who have low ICT skillsalso have low e-learning skills, which were proven to causelow teacher performance in digital technologies, in whichteachers failures in that divergence in the digital world may bethe most possible result [29]. Teacher trainers who rejectedadoption or discontinued use of the ICT skills often reportedthat using the skills was too difficult and they were not givenadequate guided practice opportunities to master the skills[30].
B.
Internet Anxiety and Self-Efficacy
Relation model between information technologies andother factors has become the object of study or research whichdeveloped rapidly in 1990s. In [31] stated that in the late1960s and early 1970s, Fishbein and Ajzen began developinga theory that would help researchers in understanding and predicting the attitudes and behaviors of individuals.Behavioral theory is widely used to study the process of adoption of information technology by end users. Among thetheories used are the Theory of Reason Action, Theory of Planned Behavior, Task-Technology Fit Theory, and theTechnology Acceptance Model. Technology AcceptanceModel (TAM) is the most extensive research model used toexamine the adoption of information technology. Reference[32] explain that within the last 18 years TAM is a modelwhich is very popular and widely used in research oninformation technology adoption process. TAM model wasfirst found by Davis [33]. According to [33], the main purposeof TAM is to provide a basis for tracking the influence of external factors on the beliefs, attitudes, and goals of users.TAM assumes that 2 individual beliefs, namely perceivedusefulness and perceived easy of use, are the main effect for computer acceptance behaviors.Reference [34] have used models based on social cognitivetheory developed by Badura to test the effect of computer self-efficacy, outcome expectations, interests or concerns, andanxiety towards computer use. In this theory, self-efficacy isan antecedent to the use of technology. Emotional responsessuch as attention and anxiety are influenced by self-efficacy.Reference [35] define an Internet-Self-efficacy (ISE) as one'sconfidence in his abilities to manage and conduct a series of actions to produce a particular achievement.Reference [36] defines self-efficacy as a consideration a person's ability to use technology in completing certain tasksor jobs, while [37] defines it as one's beliefs about knowledgeand skills to evaluate the benefits of a technology. Internetself-efficacy as a significant predictor variable used eight predictor variables to analyze the adoption of e-mail,
80http://sites.google.com/site/ijcsis/ISSN 1947-5500
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
Internet Adoption in Indonesian Education: Are Female Teachers Able to Use and Anxious of Internet?
This research aims to determine the patterns of internet usage behavior and perceptions of the internet among female teachers in elementary schools, in terms of Internet Anxiety and Internet Self-Efficacy. The level of adoption is measured…
(More)
710
Reads
3
Readcasts
1
Embed Views
More From This User
Notes
Load more
