A STUDY OF ATTITUDES AND PERCEPTIONS THAT MAY

ENABLE OR PRESENT BARRIERS FOR TEACHERS’

INTENTIONS TO INTEGRATE ICT IN MATHEMATICS
CLASSROOMS

Author: Amrit Pal Singh

Co-Author: Sonali
Designation - Student, M.Sc. Mathematics Education
Affiliated Institution - Cluster Innovation Centre, University of Delhi
Address of Institution - G C Narang Road, North Campus, University of Delhi, Delhi - 110007
Email ID of the author - ekams74@gmail.com
Contact number of the author - (+91) 7982362047
Theme - ICT in Mathematics Education
Mode of presentation - Oral
A study of attitudes and perceptions that may enable or present barriers for teachers’
intentions to integrate ICT in mathematics classrooms.

Abstract
Various initiatives are being taken by the union government, state governments to encourage the
use of technology in classrooms. ICT integration provides teachers with integrative teaching
methods that motivate students to learn, self-direct their own learning in an engaging manner.
ICT incorporation in mathematics education results in active engagement of students in the
discovery of mathematical concepts which as a consequence assists them in gaining a greater
knowledge of the mathematical concepts. Various studies corroborate the benefits of using
technology in mathematics classrooms. There are numerous elements that affect the effective
integration of ICT incorporation in classrooms, Teacher’s intention to use ICT in the teaching of
mathematics is one of them. An existing tool called “Mathematics with technology perceptions
survey” (MTPS) which uses theory of planned behaviour was used to determine teachers’
attitudes and perceptions towards the use of ICT in mathematics classrooms. MTPS was
administered to a convenient sample of 42 Delhi teachers. Prominent attitudes and perceptions
were identified. Statistical analysis was also done to check the association of teaching
experience, experience of technological tools with attitudes and perceptions. Findings of this
study indicated an attitude of positivity in general and perceptions towards the use of technology
in mathematics classrooms but some significant barriers were also observed. Results of this study
can be used to capitalise on the enablers and act on the barriers.

Key words: ICT, Mathematics with Technology Perceptions survey (MTPS), Mathematics
classrooms, ICT integration, Teacher’s attitudes, perceptions

Introduction
Digital technology has influenced all aspects of human life and education is not an exception.
Use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in education has increased over the
past decade. Since then, more focus has been put into improving the quality of education and
technological tools are helping us to improve the quality of teaching in schools. Thus, the ICT
has opened new avenues like online learning, e-learning etc. We can witness the psychological,
socioeconomic, and technological changes that ICT has brought to education. ICT has
consistently been seen as a potentially powerful tool in the field of education especially in
mathematics teaching and learning. The National Education Policy (2020) also recognises the
importance of technology in education and encourages its integration in classrooms going
forward. Moreover, It also focuses on the development of 21st century skills. Research suggests
ICT integration in educational settings “can enable the development of the learners’ 21st century
skills” (Viberg & Mavroudi, 2018). These skills are associated with enhanced mathematical
ability. As mentioned in the NCF on teaching of mathematics (2006) by NCERT, the process of
mathematical exploration can be greatly aided by technology. “The integration of ICT
encourages better mathematics teaching & learning and that and ICTs are the most powerful
when used as a tool for problem-solving, conceptual development, and critical thinking in
mathematics” (Das, 2019). (BECTA, 2008) observed in their study that “there are six major
opportunities for learners to benefit from the use of ICT in mathematics: Learning from
feedback, Observing patterns, Seeing connections, Developing visual imagery, Exploring data,
‘Teaching’ the computer.” Available evidence corroborates that ICT incorporation within the
maths classroom is a viable strategy. The question that arises here is what forms instructors' plans
to include ICT into mathematics classrooms. Various studies give enough evidence that there are
numerous factors that affect teachers' perception to use technology in their classroom. (Afshari et
al., 2009) in their study found some of the factors that influence teachers' decision to use ICT. In
another study by (Das, 2019) noted lack of technical support, time aspect of digital content
making as some of the factors which affect ICT integration in the classroom. The purpose of this
research is to examine up to what extent these perceptions affect the intentions of maths
instructors to employ ICT in their classes.

Research questions
1. What are the factors which influence teachers’ decision to use ICT in their classroom?
2. What are teachers' attitudes, perceptions of social norms and perceptions of their ability
towards ICT integration in mathematics classroom?
3. What is the association, if it exists, of teaching experience, experience of technological
tools with attitudes and perceptions?
Objectives
1. To identify factors which influence teachers’ decision to use ICT in mathematics
classroom.
2. To determine teachers' attitudes, perceptions of social norms and perceptions of their
ability towards ICT integration in mathematics classroom.
3. To determine the association of teaching experience, experience of technological tools
with attitudes and perceptions.

Review of Related Literature

Definition of ICT

Information and communication technology is referred to as ICT. It is a combination of two

terms: information technology and communication technology “Diverse set of technological
tools and resources used to transmit, store, create, share or exchange information. These
technological tools and resources include computers, the Internet, live broadcasting technologies,
recorded broadcasting technologies and telephony etc.” ("Information and communication
technologies (ICT)," 2022). ICT in education is supposed to bridge the digital gap. ICT can also
help with soft skills like problem-solving, cooperation, teamwork, and peer learning (Plomp et
al.,1996, Vougt, 2003). One of the most crucial difficulties in India is maintaining educational
quality. The problem of having insufficient access to resources is a problem for the mass
population. ICT in education can help to address this issue by providing access to high-quality
educational content via distance mode and in remote locations where children lack access to
good schools and teachers (Singhavi, Basargekar, 2019). The use of ICT and student learning are
positively correlated (Harrison et al., 2002). BECTA emphasised the role of technology as an
enabler and urged students to focus on reflection, verification, decision-making, and
problem-solving. (BECTA, 2003). According to BECTA (2003), ICT increase student
collaboration, promote communication, and knowledge sharing;it also enable quick and accurate
feedback for students, which in turn promotes positive motivation; ICT allow students to
concentrate on strategies and answer interpretations rather than wasting time on pointless
calculations; and support constructive pedagogy, in which students use technology to learn new
things. (Baya'a & Daher, 2012).

Factors influencing ICT integration

Teachers' perceptions about teaching, educational objectives, student learning, technology,

pedagogy, and the topic itself have a significant impact on the methods and resources they
choose to adopt as well as how much technology is integrated into their lessons. (Pazhaya
Pattillath et al., 2018). The majority of researchers concur that the major barriers to and enablers
of successful ICT integration are teachers' attitudes and beliefs. According to Hennessy,
Harrison, and Wamakote (2010), factors affecting teacher involvement include their attitudes
toward the use of ICT in the classroom, their motives for using it, and how they perceive its use
in general. Training is a key means of overcoming hurdles linked to teachers' beliefs and
attitudes about ICT (Singhavi, Basargekar, 2019). In the classroom time, the effective
implementation of ICT in the classroom faces lots of challenges. Researchers in mathematics
education and educational councils, such as BECTA (2004), identified the following elements as
influencing the use of ICT in teaching and learning mathematics:
School related factors: The teacher's access to technical support, the type, quantity, and quality of
available training, how the school's equipment is organised to provide maximum user
accessibility, and how resistant the institution is to making the necessary organisational changes
to support successful ICT use in the classroom.
Teacher related factors : The teacher's comfort level with using technology, their own level of
access to ICT resources, the time they have to thoroughly familiarise themselves with the
hardware and software required to use ICT in the classroom, as well as the time they have to
create lesson plans that are appropriate for using ICT in the classroom.
Another problem with teachers using ICT in the classroom has to do with their reluctance to
change as a result of their unwillingness to change their methods of instruction, which prevents
or hinders their integration of ICT. The teacher's understanding or lack either of the advantages
of ICT use in teaching and learning is a different issue related to ICT use in the classroom.
Additionally, a teacher's attitude toward technology influences how they employ technology in
the classroom.
ICT usage in the classroom and tool-related factors : The operational and technological issues
with the tools could limit their usage..
ICT use in the classroom and system-related factors: ICT-related training programmes for
instructors at colleges and universities help them become proficient users of computers and have
a good attitude toward them. If teachers are given practical training in using ICT tools in their
personal lives and in the classroom, these potentialities of their training programmes will be
realised. In particular, teachers need to be taught how to create a variety of learning materials that
are appropriate for integrating ICT in teaching and learning (Baya'a & Daher, 2012).

Methodology
The research population comprised of teachers who teach mathematics in elementary, secondary
and senior secondary grades in government and private schools of Delhi. A convenient sample of
42 elementary, secondary and senior secondary level teachers from various government,
non-government schools was taken. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first
section requested demographic data about the teachers, namely: gender, school, grades taught by
the teacher, teaching experience they have and experience of using technological tools. The
second section was Mathematics with Technology Perceptions Survey (MTPS). MTPS was
designed by (Pierce & Ball, 2009). The MTPS uses the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen,
1991) as its framework. As per (Pierce & Ball, 2009) the items in this survey determine the
degree of important attitudes and perceptions that are impeding or facilitating teachers' intentions
to integrate ICT in the mathematics classroom. It was used with due consent of the authors.

Table 1 Mathematics with Technology Perceptions Survey (MTPS) items with codes
developed by (Pierce & Ball, 2009)

S. No. Codes Items

1 AT E If I use more technology, my students will be more motivated to work on

their math.

2 AT B Students don’t understand math unless they first do it by hand.

 3 BC B If there are unexpected problems caused by technology this will be very
difficult for me.

4 AT E Technology can be used to help students gain a deeper understanding of

math than is possible in a by-hand classroom.

5 SN E The math co-ordinator (or principal) expects me to use technology in my

math classes.

6 SN B My colleagues think that when my students use technology for math they
are ‘just pressing buttons’ and not really learning math.

7 SN E My students’ parents think more technology should be used in math

classes.

8 BC B If I use more technology I won’t have time to cover the course.

9 BC B Technology is too expensive for my students to access.

10 AT E Using technology makes math more enjoyable for my students.

11 BC B Learning to use new technology for my math classes will encroach too
much on my personal time

12 AT E Technology can be used to allow my students to engage with more real

world problems.

AT attitude, SN subjective norm, BC behavioural control, E enabler, B barrier

Results and discussion

Demographic Information/Data
Out of the 42 teachers who responded to the survey, 34 (81%) were female and 8 (19%) were
male. About 60% of those surveyed belonged to government-affiliated schools and 40% from
non-government schools. About 52% teachers had less than 5 or less years of teaching
experience and roughly 55% of the teachers had 5 or less than 5 years of experience. Table 1, 2,
3 & 4 summarize the composition of this sample.

Table 2

Gender 1. Female 81.0

2. Male 19.0

School Type 1. Government 59.5

2. Non-Government 40.5

Table 3

Teaching experience (in years) Percentage of teachers

0-5 52.4
5-10 7.1
10-15 11.9
15-20 7.1
20-25 4.8
25-30 9.5
>30 7.1

Table 4

Experience with technological tools (in Percentage of teachers

years)

0-5 54.8
5-10 19.0
10-15 9.5
>15 16.7
Attitudes

Items 1, 2, 4, 10 and 12 on the MTPS represent attitudes towards integration of technology in the
mathematics classroom. For item 1 on the MTPS, 76% of those surveyed concurred that their use
of technology in the mathematics classroom would make students more motivated to work on
their maths. For item 2 on the MTPS, 85% of respondents agreed and out of those 61% strongly
agreed that maths is not understood by students unless it is done by hand first which is very
interesting as it is in contrast to findings in (Pierce & Ball, 2009) study. 50% agreed that
technology can assist pupils gain a better knowledge of arithmetic than is possible in a traditional
classroom environment. For item 10 on the MTPS, 88% of respondents concurred that maths
becomes more enjoyable for their students when technology is used and no respondent disagreed.
79% of respondents concurred that technology can be utilised to assist students in identifying
real-life problems and only 12% disagreed. Findings suggest that despite having very positive
attitudes towards technology integration in mathematics classrooms, an overwhelming majority
of the teachers in this study still carried the view that the pen and paper approach is compulsory
to learn mathematics.

Item Number SD D N A SA
(on the MTPS)

1 0 7 17 40 36

2 2 7 5 33 52

3 7 29 26 33 5
 4 5 12 33 29 21

5 2 21 19 33 24

6 14 38 26 21 0

7 2 24 40 31 2

8 5 50 10 31 5

9 0 26 17 38 19

10 0 0 12 45 43

11 14 33 19 28 5

12 0 12 10 43 36

Response to each item was scored on a 5-point likert scale. SD strongly

disagree, D disagree, N neutral, A agree, S strongly agree . SD=1 to SA=5.

Subjective norms

Items 5, 6 and 7 on the MTPS represent subjective norms. 57% of respondents held this
perception that their principal expected them to incorporate ICT in their mathematics classrooms.
Only 33% of teachers believed that their students' parents expected them to use technology in
their classrooms and 26% disagreed with it. For item 6 on the MTPS, 52% teachers disagreed,
only 21% agreed and no one strongly agreed with the perception that their colleagues think that
when their students use technology for maths they are merely pushing buttons and not learning
maths. Mixed responses to item 7 as compared to items 5 and 6 might suggest that respondents in
this study did not feel expectation from their students’ parents to have a strong perception.

Perceived behavioural controls

Items 3, 8, 9 and 11 on the MTPS represent the teacher’s perceptions of their abilities. For item
3, Although 36% of respondents in this study believed that they would be able to resolve any
technological glitches if they occur but thirty-eight percent still believed that it would be very
difficult to handle technological problems, if they occur, while teaching mathematics. 55%
respondents believed that integrating technology in maths classroom won’t affect the course of
the syllabus. And 57% of those surveyed concurred that technology is too costly for their
students to have. 33% of respondents still believed that if they integrate technology in their
maths classroom it will consume too much of their personal time. This might suggest reluctance
to learn new technology as the process can be time consuming.

Spearman’s rank correlation independence test was used to check whether there existed an
association between items and teaching experience, and items and experience with technological
tools. The table for spearman’s rho and associated p values is given in the Table 5. Statistically
significant results (p < 0.05) are indicated in bold.

Association between teaching experience and attitudes, perceptions

For item 3 on the MTPS, Spearman’s rho value and p-value came out to be 0.8183 and 0.0244 (p
< 0.05) respectively, which suggests a strong positive correlation. This finding suggests that
more experienced or senior teachers in the sample were more inclined to believe that it would be
difficult for them to resolve technological problems while teaching mathematics with technology.

Association between technological tools experience and attitudes, perceptions

Spearman’s rank correlation independence test suggested a strong association between item 8 on
the MTPS and technological tools experience. A spearman’s rho value of -1 suggested perfect
negative correlation, and the finding was statistically significant for p-value < 0.05. This finding
indicated that more exposure to technological tools meant more confidence that technology
integration in mathematics classrooms would not hinder the course of the syllabus.

Table 5 Results of Spearman’s rank correlation independence test

Item Number Teaching Experience Experience with technological
tools

1 0.6910 -0.4000
0.0856 0.6000

2 0.7027 -0.6000
0.0782 0.4000

3 0.8183 -0.4000
0.0244 0.6000

4 0.7027 0.4000
0.0782 0.6000

5 0.0360 0.0000
0.9390 1.0000

6 0.3783 0.8000
0.4026 0.2000

7 0.2142 -0.3162
0.6445 0.6838

8 0.0360 -1.0000
0.9390 <0.000

9 -0.5930 0.4000
0.1605 0.6000

10 0.0901 0.4000
 0.8477 0.6000

11 0.2182 -0.8000
0.6383 0.2000

12 -0.0901 0.6324
0.8477 0.3675

Conclusion and implications

Various initiatives are being taken by the union government, state governments and other
concerned authorities to promote the usage of technology in education (Thangiah, R., I, R. K.
K., & S, S. 2021). For the successful implementation of these policies, teachers are expected to
adopt teaching practices that integrate ICT in classrooms for effective conceptual development,
student collaboration, communication, and the development of 21st century skills which the latest
National Education Policy framed by the Government of India also talks about. Various
researches that have been mentioned in this study corroborate the effectiveness of using
technology in mathematics teaching. But it requires a change in teachers’ intentions to use
technology in mathematics classrooms. MTPS proved to be an effective tool to collect data on
mathematics teachers’ attitudes, perceptions and beliefs that facilitate or impede them from using
technology in mathematics classrooms. The results were quite similar in some regards and
different in others when compared to the findings reported by (Pierce & Ball, 2009) in their
study. Overall, teachers recognised the potential advantages of technology. The teachers in this
sample agreed that technology may be utilised to increase students' ability to learn in a variety of
ways, a sizable proportion of teachers still find a range of obstacles to employing technology. A
large proportion of teachers in our study still believed that the pen and paper approach is
mandatory to learn mathematics. More than half believed that they would not be able to finish
the course if they used technology. Same goes for cost related issues, the majority of teachers
believed that not all of their students would be able to have access to technology. According to
the findings of this study, teacher education programmes should cover attitudes and perceptions
as well as digital skill development. Policy makers, concerned authorities must capitalise on
facilitators while also offering ways for overcoming hurdles.
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 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY

This is to certify that the research paper submitted by me is an outcome of my

independent and original work. I have duly acknowledged all the sources from which the ideas
and extracts have been taken. The project is free from any plagiarism and has not been submitted
elsewhere for publication.

Name of Author: Amrit Pal Singh

Name of Co-Author: Sonali

Designation: Student, M.Sc. Mathematics Education

Affiliated Institution: Cluster Innovation Centre, University of Delhi

Title of the paper: A study of attitudes and perceptions that may enable or present barriers for
Delhi teachers’ intentions to integrate ICT in mathematics classrooms.

E-mail: ekams74@gmail.com

Contact Number: (+91) 7982362047

According to the National Centre for Education Statistics (NCES) the following are
considered to be mathematical abilities. Conceptual Understanding : Students
demonstrate conceptual understanding in mathematics when they provide evidence that
they can recognize, label, and generate examples of concepts; use and interrelate models,
diagrams, manipulatives, and varied representations of concepts; identify and apply
principles; know and apply facts and definitions; compare, contrast, and integrate related
concepts and principles; recognize, interpret, and apply the signs, symbols, and terms
used to represent concepts.
Students demonstrate procedural knowledge in mathematics when they select and apply
appropriate procedures correctly; verify or justify the correctness of a procedure using
concrete models or symbolic methods; or extend or modify procedures to deal with
factors inherent in problem settings. Procedural knowledge encompasses the abilities to
read and produce graphs and tables, execute geometric constructions, and perform
non-computational skills such as rounding and ordering. Procedural knowledge is often
reflected in a student's ability to connect an algorithmic process with a given problem
situation, to employ that algorithm correctly, and to communicate the results of the
algorithm in the context of the problem setting.
.