Teachers’ knowledge and integration of digital technology into the teaching of ecology in government-aided secondary schools in Wakiso District

Abstract

The study sought to establish the relationship between teachers’ knowledge and the integration of digital technology into the teaching of Ecology in Government aided Secondary schools in Wakiso district. This study employed a quantitative paradigm and a cross sectional correlation survey design. The independent variable was Teachers’ Knowledge conceptualized as Content, Technological and Pedagogical Knowledge, the DV was integration of digital technology conceptualized as the constructs of Activity Framework. The unit of analysis comprised of all the Biology teachers in the six zones of WAKISSHA which included, Naddangira, Wampeewo, Kitende, Matugga, Nsangi, and Entebbe. A simple random sampling technique was used to select the Biology teachers (N=80) who were handling Ecology at both Ordinary and Advanced levels of Education from 19 Government aided secondary schools. Data were collected using questionnaires and analyzed using SPSS for both descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearson’s correlation and Regression analysis was done to establish the relationship between the DV and IV and the extent to which the DV was influenced by the IV. The findings showed that the teachers’ content knowledge and integration of digital technology bear a weak but positive correlation of r =0.236, the teachers’ technological knowledge had a very weak but negative correlation of r = -0.057 and the pedagogical knowledge on the hand showed a weak but negative correlation of r = -0.119. The proportion of variance in the dependent variable that could be explained by the independent variable was 4.3% for teachers’ content knowledge, 0.5% for pedagogical knowledge and 0.3% for technological knowledge. Generally the findings showed that only content knowledge was statistically significant. However other factors such as teachers’ perception, availability of computers, limited time and large class size also affected integration of ICT. Teachers need training on how to integrate technology into the teaching of and also mind set change is important. The teacher training institutions should also design programs that incorporate the component of ICT integration into the teaching of Ecology in secondary schools. I recommend that the same study be carried out in other regions using other research paradigms.

Key Words: Integration, Biology, Ecology, content, Pedagogical, Technological