The e-Learning Readiness of Teachers in Hong Kong.

Abstract

There is a common understanding that the twenty-first century will be a more globalized and knowledge-based era. In response to this rapid change, Hong Kong is trying to transform itself into an information society. A lot of education reforms were implemented in schools in the past few years. Having learnt the lesson from the first IT plan (1998 - 2003), the Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) released its second Information Technology strategic plan, focusing on the real change of pedagogy, the promotion of life-long learning and e-learning, the use of wireless technology as the extension of the existing wired network, and the new roles of parents as well as students in the life-long learning environment. This research aims at studying readiness of Hong Kong teachers regarding e-learning. Results indicate that teachers in Hong Kong are not very prepared to use e-learning technologies for teaching and learning. There are differences in readiness perceived between male and females, secondary school teachers and primary school teachers, and teachers of different secondary schools of different bandings.

Full text

The e-Learning Readiness of Teachers in Hong Kong
Koon Keung Teddy So
The University of Hong Kong
teddy@cite.hku.hk
Abstract
There is a common understanding that the twenty-
first century will be a more globalized and knowledge-
based era. In response to this rapid change, Hong
Kong is trying to transform itself into an information
society. A lot of education reforms were implemented
in schools in the past few years. Having learnt the
lesson from the first IT plan (1998 - 2003), the
Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) released its
second Information Technology strategic plan,
focusing on the real change of pedagogy, the
promotion of life-long learning and e-learning, the use
of wireless technology as the extension of the existing
wired network, and the new roles of parents as well as
students in the life-long learning environment. This
research aims at studying readiness of Hong Kong
teachers regarding e-learning. Results indicate that
teachers in Hong Kong are not very prepared to use e-
learning technologies for teaching and learning. There
are differences in readiness perceived between male
and females, secondary school teachers and primary
school teachers, and teachers of different secondary
schools of different bandings.
1. Introduction
With the support of new communication technologies,
there is a common understanding that the twenty-first
century will be a more globalized and knowledge-
based era, when knowledge is treated as a commodity.
In response to this rapid change, Hong Kong is trying
to transform itself into an information society. A lot of
education reforms were implemented to our schools so
as to equip young people to take the challenge in the
past few years. We had our very first five-year
Information Technology strategic plan implemented in
all primary and secondary schools from 1998 to 2003.
In July 2004, the Education and Manpower Bureau
(EMB) released its second Information Technology
strategic plan, focusing on the change of pedagogy, the
promotion of life-long learning and e-learning, the use
of wireless technology as the extension of the existing
wired network, and the new roles of parents as well as
students in the life-long learning environment.
According to the report prepared by both IBM and the
Economist in 2003, the overall ranking of e-learning
readiness of Hong Kong is 19th of out 60 countries
around the world (The Economist & IBM, 2003). One
of the important factors influencing the success of e-
learning is teacher training. As the way to deliver the
online curriculum is new and different from the
traditional one, instructors must be trained to make use
of this state-of-the-art educational tool. “An ineffective
teacher can waste the time of 30 or 40 students. But
bad teaching online can touch thousands. ‘We can
create mass damage quickly.’” (The Economist &
IBM, 2003; p. 12)
As the readiness of teachers to use the new
technology is critical to the success of implementing e-
learning in schools, it is worthy to investigate if they
are prepared to embrace the new technologies in their
teaching and learning activities. The purpose of this
research is thus to find out how ready the teachers of
secondary and primary schools are to use the new
technologies, and what factors are influencing their
readiness. It is hoped that the experience gained from
this research is beneficial to other countries exploring
the use of e-learning technology in new teaching and
learning activities.
2. Literature Review
e-Learning readiness assessment helps an
organization to design e-learning strategies
comprehensively and to implement its ICT goals
effectively (Kaur, 2004). Learners must be “e-ready”
so that a coherent achievable strategy that is tailored to
meet their needs may be implemented (infodev, 2001).
In other words, this readiness assessment provides key
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information to organizations to supply solutions that
can cater to the specific needs of each learning group
(McConnell International, 2000).
Chapnick designed a model for measuring the e-
learning readiness of an organization in eight
categories: psychological readiness, sociological
readiness, environmental readiness, human resource
readiness, financial readiness, technological skill
(aptitude) readiness, equipment readiness, and content
readiness. The Ministry of Education of Singapore
found that this model is especially useful for principals
and heads of departments who intend to start e-
learning in the school (MOE, 2004). However, the
model does not fully fit the school environment. With
reference to Chapnick’s model, Kaur and Abas (2004)
designed a model for measuring the e-learning
readiness of the Open University Malaysia. The model
consists of eight constructs: learner, management,
personnel, content, technical, environmental, cultural
and financial readiness.
3. Methodology
This research adopted a survey method to study
Hong Kong teachers’ readiness for e-learning. A Five-
point Likert scale (5 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly
disagree) questionnaire was sent to 200 teachers of
secondary and primary schools. 148 were completed
and returned. 131 of them were valid. The return rate is
65.5%. Descriptive statistics and One-way ANOVA
test were applied to analyze the data.
4. Data Findings and Discussion
Results show that there are differences in readiness
perceived between male and females, secondary school
teachers and primary school teachers, and secondary
school teachers in different school bandings. The
results of this study are summarized in tables 1 and 2.
It is worthy to notice that in many aspects the
primary school teachers have significant different
perceptions when compared from those in secondary
school teachers. Although officially the amount of IT
training in terms of time and opportunity offered to
both primary and secondary school teachers from the
Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) is the same,
the primary teachers still consider themselves know
less about what e-learning is. Furthermore, they are not
just less confidence about themselves, in perceiving
the abilities of their students, they also feel that the
primary students do not have enough IT competencies
to use e-learning technologies.
Moreover, their confidence in their principals’
understanding and support of using e-learning in
teaching and learning is not as high as the secondary
school teachers. It can be originated from the
comparatively shorter history of having computers in
primary schools. In Hong Kong the secondary schools
had to teach computer studies as a subject since 1982.
Culture and confidence in using / operating computers
gradually has been developing in secondary schools
for more than twenty years. Most of the secondary
school teachers are university graduates who might
have experiences of using computers during their
university studies.
Not until 1998, the year when the first IT strategic
plan in education was launched, the primary schools in
Hong Kong did not have any computers. As a result, in
general, primary teachers as well as their principals
have only five to six years’ time to learn how to
operate computer, to try integrating IT into their
teaching, and even less time to explore the use of e-
learning. Moreover, most of the primary school
teachers were diploma graduates and they did not have
many chances of using computers in their pre-service
training. This might explain the phenomenon why the
primary teachers do not have much confidence in their
principals and themselves in using e-learning
technologies as the secondary school teachers.
The issue of accessibility is always been a problem
in different countries. According to the latest statistic
from EMB (2004), the average numbers of computers
installed in primary and secondary schools in Hong
Kong are 97 and 247 respectively. The computer to
student ratios of primary and secondary schools are
about 1:9 and 1:5 respectively. Hence accessing
computers is a bigger problem to primary pupils.
Although nowadays there are many public terminals in
many places open to all users, the young primary
pupils are considered too young to go around by
themselves. From the Asian point of views, young kids
should either stay at school or at home. As a result,
their accessibilities are further restricted.
Gender difference is always a controversial topic.
Some research found that there is a gender difference
while some did not. This research found that there is a
gender difference between male and female Hong
Kong teachers. In all three questions “I know what e-
learning is”, “I am ready for integrating e-learning in
my teaching”, and “I have enough IT competency to
Proceedings of the Fifth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT’05)
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prepare the e-learning materials”, male teachers show
higher confidence than the female teachers, although
they received equal amount of IT training from the
government.
5. Conclusion
Although huge resources has been poured into the
IT in education planning, schools in Hong Kong are
still at the initial stage of employing e-learning in their
daily teaching and learning activities. It is necessary to
conduct a needs assessment in full scale before any e-
learning program is actually launched.
6. References
[1] Chapnick, S. (2000). Are You Ready for E-Learning?
Retrieved on Dec. 19, 2004 from
http://www.astd.org/ASTD/Resources/dyor/article_archives.
htm.
[2] Education and Manpower Bureau (2004). Empowering
Learning and Teaching with Information Technology.
[3] infoDev (2001). E-Readiness as a Tool for ICT
Development. Retrieved on Feb. 24, 2005 from
http://www.infodev.org/library.
[4] Kaur, K. and Abas, Z. (2004). An Assessment of e-
Learning Readiness at the Open University Malaysia.
International Conference on Computers in Education
(ICCE2004), Melbourne, Australia.
[5] McConnell International LLC. (2000). Risk E-Business:
Seizing the Opportunity of Global E-Readiness Report.
Retrieved on Feb. 24, 2005 from
http://www.mcconnellinternational.com/ereadiness/EReadine
ssReport.htm.
[6] Ministry of Education. Are you ready for e-learning?
Retrieved on Dec. 19, 2004 from
http://www.moe.gov.sg/edumall/rd/research_summaries.htm.
[7] The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited and IBM
(2003). The 2003 e-Learning Readiness Rankings: A White
Paper from the Economist Intelligence Unit 2003. Retrieved
on Dec. 19, 2004 from http:// www.eiu.com.
Gender N Mean Std. Deviation F value Significance
My principal / senior management
know what e-learning is
Male
Female
54
60
3.30
2.90
1.06
1.05
4.010 .048
The IT infrastructure in my school
can support e-learning
Male
Female
54
60
3.50
3.13
0.97
1.00
3.947 .049
My school has a culture of
sharing and team work
Male
Female
41
56
2.66
3.04
0.85
0.91
4.257 .042
I know what e-learning is Male
Female
54
60
3.74
3.28
0.78
1.04
6.898 .010
I am ready for integrating e-
learning in my teaching
Male
Female
54
60
3.54
3.20
0.84
0.88
4.355 .039
I have enough IT competency to
prepare the e-learning materials
Male
Female
54
60
3.69
3.25
0.91
0.89
6.632 .011
Table 1: e-Learning Readiness of Male vs. Female Teachers
Type N Mean Std. Deviation F value Significance
My principal / senior management
know what e-learning is
Primary
Secondary
64
67
2.88
3.27
1.02
1.07
4.668 .033
My principal / senior management
support the use of e-learning
Primary
Secondary
64
67
3.23
3.55
0.87
0.93
4.100 .045
I know what e-learning is Primary
Secondary
64
67
3.33
3.66
0.93
0.88
4.333 .039
My students have enough IT skills
to use e-learning technologies
Primary
Secondary
64
67
2.59
3.09
0.97
0.85
9.710 .002
Assess to web is not a problem to
my students
Primary
Secondary
64
67
2.83
3.48
1.09
0.97
12.924 .000
Table 2: e-Learning Readiness of Primary School Teachers vs. Secondary School Teachers
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