Attitude towards ICT: a statistical analysis of gender differences in Spanish higher education teachers

Abstract

The use of ICT resources in the teaching and learning process, as well as in the field of educational research, requires positive attitudes from all higher education teachers. Therefore, the purposes of this study are: (1) to measure both the level of attitude of teachers towards technology related to the teaching and learning process and the level of attitude towards technology related to research in both genders; and (2) to know if there are differences in the attitudes of teachers according to their gender. For this, an ex post facto design with 867 higher education teachers from the Spanish territory was used. An instrument created by RomeroMartínez et al. (2020) was composed of a total of 18 items, classified into three dimensions: affective, cognitive and behavioural attitudes towards technology in the teaching and learning process; affective attitudes towards technology in educational research; and cognitive attitudes towards technology in educational research. In general, the results showed that the teachers perceived a very good attitude towards technology (3.9/5), being higher in the male gender. Specifically, significant differences were found between both genders in the global attitude towards technology, as well as in the affective attitudes dimension towards ICT research. The conclusions derived from this study can help to develop training actions focused on improving the most unfavourable attitudes of each gender.