Teachers’ Competence in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as an Educational Tool in Teaching: An Empirical Analysis for Program Intervention

Abstract

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) provides access to information through telecommunication technologies to interact in the digital world and continues to evolve to bring remarkable changes in the educational system. In this context, descriptive research determined and described the level of teachers’ ICT competence in different skill-set through a standardized survey questionnaire adapted from the National Information and Communications Technology Competency Standards NICS-Basic of the Commission of Information and Communication Technology. A total of seventy-two secondary teachers in one selected Integrated High School in the Philippines for the school year 2018-2019 were chosen purposively as respondents of the study. To ensure a one-hundred percent retrieval of data, the researchers personally administered the survey questionnaire to the respondents. Frequency and Percentage, Mean, T-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used as a statistical tool to analyze the results using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The findings revealed that teachers’ Information and Communications Technology competence in different skill-set is intermediate. Moreover, age, gender, the highest educational attainment, and teaching position has no significant effect to the ICT competence of teachers. However, the number of teachers ICT-related seminars and training attended in ICT basics, spreadsheet, computer ethics and security were significant. Thus, the researchers proposed to integrate ICT in the In-Service Training (INSET) for teachers anchored on the skill-set that has an intermediate level by introducing the NICS-Advance to enhance and improve teachers’ ICT competence.