Examining of primary and secondary school teachers? technophobia levels

The purpose of this study was to explore primary and secondary school teachers? levelof technology phobia. Secondly, to investigate the effects of gender, age, computerownership, computer usage frequency, computer experience and in-service educationstatus as related to teachers? perceptions of technology phobia.The research universe was the public and private primary and secondary schools withtheir teaching staff located in Rize. The sample of the study includes 512 teachers fromdifferent majors. The scales were administrated during 2009 spring semester. In the studyit was used three main scales named as Computer Anxiety Scale, Computer ThoughtsScale and Computer Attitude Scale. Each main scale has three sub-scales. ComputerAnxiety Scale consist of interactive computer learning anxiety, consumer technologyanxiety, observational computer learning anxiety, Computer Thoughts Scale consist ofcomputer negative computer cognitions, positive computer learning cognitions, computerenjoyment, and Computer Attitude Scale consist of negative computer attitude, positivecomputer attitude and attitudes about computers and future jobs, respectively. Moreoverthe questionnaire had some questions that asked demographic characteristics ofparticipants.The findings show that the totals of 62% teachers have moderate/high level oftechnophobia. Furthermore, participants? gender, age, computer usage frequency andcomputer experience were a significant factor on their computer anxiety and computerthoughts. Although many of the teachers had a computer, computer ownership ofparticipants did not have any effect on their computer anxiety, computer attitude andcomputer thoughts. The possible explanations for the findings and the study topics that canbe generated from these findings have been mentioned under the ?Discussion andConclusion? heading.