Exploring ICT professional development of experienced female EFL teachers

Abstract

The integration of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) into language teaching and learning is mandated by the national policy in Indonesia. This study aims to describe 34 experienced female EFL teachers’ experiences ICT professional development.. This study reports on: 1) encouraging and discouraging factors of ICT use for participants, 2) solutions of ICT integration for participants’ professional development, and 3) peers’ perception on participants’ improvement of ICT competencies. In order to investigate the external and internal factors on the participants' ICT professional development experiences, a sequential explanatory design with mixed methods approach was used in the study. In the first phase, a questionnaire was used as the instrument to categorize participants into satisfactory ICT proficiency and less satisfactory ICT proficiency. The second phase was one-on-one interviews to find further information on the participants’ experiences on ICT professional development. The questionnaire was analyzed using SPSS, while interviews were analyzed using deductive content analysis which employs four stages in its process. Results show that all teachers with proper ICT proficiency and those who are less proficient in ICT have positive perceptions of the use of technology in education. However, there are differences in how they solve internal and external problems, and how they perceive guidance from peers and also support from the school environment. This study recommends universities and the government to develop programs of ICT professional development suitable for experienced female teachers.