Thái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt Nam

Teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English .... This study aims to explore tertiary Vietnamese EFL teachers’attitudes towardsThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt NamThái độ của giảng viên đối với việc sử dụng công nghệ thông tin và truyền thông vào việc giảng dạy tiếng anh tại một trường đại học ở Việt Nam

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

1.1.1 The use of information and communication technology in education in the world

Over the past 30 years, the world has witnessed the widespread use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in every sector of society, including education in developed and developing countries Empirical evidence of the transformative effects of ICT is widely visible in the changing ways people around the world live and work Computers, laptops and tablets have changed common practices in most work environments and homes Smartphones are practically ubiquitous in developed countries and increasingly prevalent everywhere, enabling almost continuous connections to people and sources of information worldwide Significant changes in how people access information and interact with each other have laid the foundations for broad societal changes (Lim et al., 2013).

In education, ICT plays an essential role in innovating educators’ instruction, learners’ learning activities, and management of educational activities to improve academic quality and meet the needs of society Previous research has shown that using ICT appropriately can raise educational quality and connect learning to real-life situations (Lowther et al., 2008; Weert &Tatnall, 2005) Therefore, teachers and learners worldwide have been searching for innovative methods to enhance the quality of their teaching and learning Teachers, including English teachers, have chosen to apply ICT in their teaching practices and have believed that ICT is a valuable tool to enhance the quality of their teaching (Fu, 2013; Player-Koro, 2012; Yunus, 2007) Two decades ago, for example, online communication on the Internet was not widespread in an English classroom However, such a learning activity may be easily seen in most modern classes Through ICT, learning can occur anytime and anywhere Online course materials, for example, can be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“Teleconferencing classrooms allow both learners and teachers to interact simultaneously with ease and convenience.” (Fu, 2013, p 111).

Due to ICT’s crucial role and its introduction in education, the ICT competency standards for learners and educators have been established to promote innovation and excellence in learning, teaching and leading The International Society for Technology in Education Standards has specified that teachers or educators can take seven roles as learners, leaders, citizens, collaborators, designers, facilitators, and analysts (International Society for Technology in Education, 2019) The varied ICT competency requirements for each position have also been posed For example, as a learner, teachers are requested to “continually improve their practice by learning from and with others and exploring proven and promising practices that leverage technology to improve student learning.” (International Society for Technology in Education,

2019, p 5) However, a higher and more complex competency level is demanded for teachers as collaborators; that is, they can “manage the use of technology and student learning strategies in digital platforms, virtual environments, hands-on makerspaces or in the field when they take the role of a facilitator” (International Society for Technology in Education, 2019, p 6).

Similarly, UNESCO issued its ICT Competency Framework for Teachers(ICT CFT) to guide teacher training on digital technologies in education systems from K-12 to the tertiary level The ICT CFT version 3 provides a framework from which 18 digital competencies teachers should develop to use technology

The use of ICT in foreign language teaching in Vietnam

Vietnam is a developing country in Southeast Asia with a fast-developing economy According to The World Bank (2022), Vietnam’s shift from a centrally planned to a market economy has transformed the country from one of the poorest in the world into a lower-middle-income country It is now one of the most dynamic emerging countries in East Asia The GDP has maintained positive growth at a relatively high rate for the past few years (The World Bank, 2022).Recently, Vietnam has been speeding up its integration into the world economy.

To date, Vietnam has diplomatic relations with 160 countries It has been a member of 63 international organisations, including the World Trade Organisation (2007), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (1998), the Association of South East Asian Nations (1995), and so on (MOFA, 2018) In this process of international integration, the Government of Vietnam has emphasized that foreign languages, primarily English, play an essential role. Foreign languages function as a connecting bridge between Vietnam and the outside world and help Vietnam in economic, cultural, and educational cooperation with other countries and international organizations.

Having identified the role of foreign languages, the Government has given full support to the teaching and learning of foreign languages in general and English in particular The support can be seen in the recent extensive legal documents that aim to create favourable environments for teaching and learning foreign languages Among these policies, there have been directives and incentives to apply or integrate ICT into the innovation of the teaching and learning methods approaching the development of learners’ competence and quality On top of these policies is the Government Resolution on a substantial and comprehensive renovation of Vietnam’s tertiary education from 2006-2020. This resolution proposes solutions to innovate training methods which state “to renovate training methods along three directions: equipping learners with learning methods, promoting their initiatives, and applying ICT in teaching and learning activities.” (The Government of Vietnam, 2008, p 4) This starting policy paves the way for introducing ICT into education in general and its use in teaching English in particular In line with the Government Resolution on a substantial and comprehensive renovation of Vietnam’s tertiary education, in

2013, Vietnam passed one of the most significant pieces of education legislation in the country’s history: Resolution 29 on fundamental and comprehensive renovation in education that put the development of Vietnam’s education system at the top of socioeconomic development plans (A V Le et al., 2022) This resolution requests to continue to renovate tremendously the teaching and learning methods It also sets out one of the tasks and solutions “to promote the application of information and communication technology in teaching and learning” (The Vietnamese Communist Party, 2013, p 6).

Following the above resolutions is the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) directive on strengthening ICT use in teaching and training in the educational system from 2008-2012 This directive encourages teachers “to deploy the application of IT in teaching and learning, to support innovations of teaching methods, to integrate IT applications in each subject effectively and creatively in the locations where IT equipment conditions are available” (MoET,

2008, p 2) In this directive, besides policies to encourage innovation in teaching and learning methods, there are policies to improve foreign language proficiency for learners As stated in this directive, English is determined to be the primary language taught in educational institutions of the national education system.

In addition, the requirements for general foreign language proficiency standards and English proficiency standards in particular applied to learners have been specified and well documented Specifically, in 2014 MoET issued Circular

No 01/2014/TT-BGDĐT on promulgating the six-level Foreign Language Proficiency Framework for Vietnam, describing each level's specific foreign knowledge and skills (MoET, 2014) In 2015, MoET issued Circular No. 07/2015/TT-BGDDT on enacted regulations on the minimum volume of knowledge, the capacity requirement that learners achieve after graduation to each of the tertiary training programmes, and the processes for construction, evaluation and promulgation of training programmes for undergraduates, masters and doctors This Circular requires undergraduate, master and doctoral students to achieve certain levels of foreign language proficiency Besides, in 2016 the Prime Minister of Vietnam issued Decision No 1982/QD-TTg on approving for Vietnamese qualifications framework, which classifies and standardizes competencies, minimum learning volume and diplomas and certificates suitable to levels of vocational education and higher education in Vietnam, contributing to improving the training quality of human resources.

As one of the measures to realize the above policies, the National Foreign Language Project (NFLP) has been approved and implemented since 2008 (The Government of Vietnam, 2008) and will continue until 2025 (The Government of Vietnam, 2017) The project set out the overall goals, which include: i) to innovate foreign language teaching and learning in the national education system; ii) to continue implementing new foreign language teaching and learning programs at all educational training levels; iii) to improve the capacity to use foreign languages to meet the needs for study and work; iv) to strengthen the competitiveness of human resources in the integration period, contributing to the country’s construction and development; and v) to create the foundation to make foreign languages compulsory to general education by 2025.

In 2010, the Decision on the “Project on Turning Vietnam into one of the World’s Leading ICT Nations” was approved One of this project’s targets is that

“by 2015, 30% of graduates from IT universities should be able to use foreign languages (mainly English) in their IT jobs” (The Government of Vietnam, 2010, p 2) Recently, the Government has approved the Project to enhance the quality of tertiary education in the 2019 – 2025 period One identified measure is “to pay attention to enhancing the learners’ English proficiency through effective implementation of the NFLP and to create English-using environments in tertiary institutions” (The Government of Vietnam, 2019, p 5).

Based on the directions and guidelines from the Government and MoET,especially the orders from the NFLP project management unit, the training and education institutions nationwide have taken action to improve the quality ofEnglish education One of the solutions is to promote the application of information technology and to increase favourable conditions for teaching and learning foreign languages So far, there have been training courses (both short and long-term) organized to foster teaching methodology and IT skills for teachers Significant investments in technological equipment for universities serving English teaching have also been made It can be seen that not only have these policies and the proliferation of ICT created favourable conditions for ICT use in education in general and in teaching English in particular, but they also put pressure on EFL teachers to innovate teaching methods with ICT.

When investigating the teachers’ use of ICT in teaching English, many studies have pointed out that teachers use technology in different ways: as a tool to facilitate administrative tasks, as a way to communicate with parents and students, and to support teaching specific (Dang, 2013; Drent & Meelissen, 2008; Nguyen, 2017; Ottestad, 2010) Several studies also argued that EFL teachers’ use of ICT has been affected by several subjective and objective factors (e.g., policies, beliefs, attitudes, and ICT attributes) (Albirini, 2006; Bullock, 2004; Dang, 2013; Drent & Meelissen, 2008; Rogers, 2003) Among these factors, the teachers’ attitudes have been argued to be the leading factor for their decision to adopt ICT in their teaching and use it effectively For example, Rogers (2003) stated that individuals’ adoption or rejection of an innovation largely depended on their attitudes towards the innovation In his work, Rogers used the terms innovation and technology interchangeably Bullock (2004) uncovered that teachers’ attitudes were a significant factor in enabling or disabling them in adopting technology.

Similarly, Drent and Meelissen (2008) argued that innovative uses of ICT by teacher educators sourced from a combination of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or competencies beneficial to the innovative use of ICT Dang (2013) stated that teachers’ attitudes, one of the teacher-related factors, were the essential determinant of ICT integration in language instruction He also argued that teachers who had positive attitudes were more likely to be willing to integrate ICT into their work Several researchers have indicated that the research studies on ICT application in teaching English have been done in different settings, like in Western countries and with various participants, but few studies have been conducted in contexts of developing countries (Albirini, 2006; Li et al., 2019; Mwila, 2018).

During the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic and response to social distancing policies for Covid-19 prevention, the Vietnam education system has uptaken transformative methods of instruction, such as online learning or blended learning to ensure teaching and learning activities take place normally These methods have led to more extensive deploying ICT applications and significant investments in ICT facilities The Vietnamese EFL tertiary teachers, including those from Windy University with limited use of ICT, have to switch from traditional face-to-face teaching in physical classrooms to online education withICT Although the use of ICT in teaching English had been promoted at WindyUniversity before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no research into teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in their instruction, which is the determining factor for their use of ICT in teaching.

Rationale of the study

The motivation to conduct the present study originates from academic, contextual and personal perspectives First, from an intellectual aspect, research looking into how teachers use ICT for teaching and learning is always necessary. Research has shown that teachers are likely to continue teaching with ICT if they have successful experiences with ICT By contrast, if they have experienced failure with ICT, resulting in embarrassment or loss of face, they are likely to resist using it (Aydin, 2013) The success of using ICT in English teaching depends on external and internal factors (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010). Concerning internal personal factors, Frank et al (2011) argued that teachers’ attitudes and beliefs towards the usefulness of using ICT are pivotal for their effective use in educational settings Although researchers have a consensus that teachers’ attitudes and beliefs play a critical role in adopting or rejecting ICT in academic settings, it remains unclear whether teachers hold similar beliefs or attitudes As a result, little is known about teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English.

Additionally, although it is essential to study teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching, it’s more crucial to examine the effects and associations of the factors that shape these attitudes Researchers have identified several factors influencing teachers’ attitudes, such as characteristics of ICT in teaching, teachers’ ICT competence, teachers’ levels of computer access, the cultural relevance of using ICT, and teachers’ characteristics (Albirini, 2006; Bolliger & Wasilik, 2009; Islahi & Nasrin, 2019) Despite the increasing number of studies investigating the relationships between teachers’ attitudes and related factors, the associations between these variables have not permanently been clearly established Moreover, findings from prior studies may not apply to the Vietnamese context due to cultural and contextual variations.

Concerning the research context, the adoption of ICT in teaching English at Windy University has been relatively new and based on the conviction that ICT can transform traditional teaching practices and enhance the quality of teaching Hence, students are better prepared for the digital age and can meet the increasing demands of their future employers However, the current plans to implement ICT have revealed a few issues Firstly, they seem to pay much attention to the potential of ICT itself, and secondly, they do not rely enough on research and information gathering As a result, one crucial element that is overlooked in both the ICT plans and their execution is the attitudes of the teachers, who are the real agents of change in the classroom Due to its newness in English language teaching, using ICT in teaching is considered an innovation. Innovation research widely recognized that teachers must develop positive attitudes towards ICT to effectively use them in their teaching practices (Rogers, 2003; Watson, 1998; Woodrow, 1992).

Regarding Windy University context, aligning with top-down policies, teachers and learners have been proactively innovating or adopting new methods to continuously improve learners’ English proficiency and other necessary skills. One of the fundamental changes in teaching methods is the adoption of ICT in managing the class and conducting and managing learning activities Up to now, however, no comprehensive study has been undertaken to explore Windy University’s English teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in their teaching (Tran et al., 2023).

Finally, from a personal perspective, I have been working as a full-timeEnglish teacher at the University of Information and CommunicationTechnology, an affiliated institution of Windy University As a result, I have had opportunities to expose to the advances in ICT and witnessed how ICT can contribute to the innovation of English teaching and learning I have also observed my colleagues use ICT in their teaching practice and found some issues Specifically, many of them used ICT perfunctorily or to complement their traditional instruction rather than using it effectively and innovatively In light of the determining roles of teachers’ attitudes in the literature, the lack of research in the Windy University context in particular, and the scarcity of similar research in Vietnam, I decided to conduct this study I believe that my research findings on Windy University teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English can give the stakeholders a solid and empirical understanding of the current situation of teachers’ attitudes on which practical policies and measures can be given to resolve these issues As a result, the successful implementation of these policies and actions can, to some extent, enhance English teaching quality at WindyUniversity and other universities nationwide.

Study aims and research questions

This study had two primary aims: i) to explore tertiary EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English; ii) to investigate the associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and the factors influencing these attitudes Three specific research questions are:

Question 1: What are the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English?

Question 2: What are the teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English?

2.1 What are the teachers’ perceptions of their ICT competence levels? 2.2 What are the teachers’ perceptions of ICT attributes in teaching English?

2.3 What are the teachers’ perceptions of ICT access levels?

Question 3: What are the associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and the factors influencing these attitudes?

Scope of the study

The current study was conducted at Windy University, a regional comprehensive public university in the north of Vietnam, with the participation of 112 out of 138 EFL teachers teaching English at nine affiliated institutions of Windy University Regarding contents, this study was done to explore the EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English Furthermore, it was carried out to investigate the associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and several factors influencing these attitudes Concerning the associations, the current study was done first to explore three factors influencing teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English: teachers’ perceptions of their ICT competence levels, their perceptions of the ICT attributes (characteristics) in teaching English, and their perceptions of the ICT access levels Then, the associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and the three above factors and five teachers’ characteristics (age, education level, teaching experience, teaching methods, and income) were investigated.

In terms of methodology, a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach combining both quantitative and qualitative data was employed to achieve the research objectives The quantitative data were collected through an online questionnaire and analysed in phase 1 The qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews in the next phase to explain some quantitative findings and gain in-depth insight into the phenomenon The study was conducted over 18 months, from April 2021 to December 2022.

Significance of the study

The current study contributes theoretically and practically to the knowledge and understanding of tertiary EFL teachers’ attitudes towards usingICT in teaching English In terms of theory, the study has contributed to the literature on tertiary EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teachingEnglish The study has added to a growing body of literature on exploring the tertiary EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English in terms of cognitive, affective and behavioural components Next, the findings on this intra-attitudinal structure which is made up of the three underlying aspects (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993), have supported the research into social attitudes in the existing literature, especially those that adopt Rosenberg and Hovland’s (1960) Schematic Conception of Attitudes and the first two stages (Knowledge and Persuasion) of Roger’s (2003) Model of Five Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process as conceptual frameworks in some respects The findings provided empirical evidence to confirm the intra-structure of attitudes with three components: cognitive, affective and behavioural.

Furthermore, the results indicated that these components could be measured through verbal statements of feelings, perceptual verbal statements of beliefs or knowledge, and oral statements about overt or intended behaviours. Additionally, the findings shed light on the construct of “stimuli” noted in Rosenberg and Hovland’s (1960) Schematic Conception of Attitudes Precisely, the term “stimuli” in the model is a broad or umbrella construct covering a variety of attitude objects, such as “individuals, situations, social issues, social groups, and other attitude objects” (Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960, p.3) Yet, this study could specifically refer to “stimuli” as the use of ICT in teaching English.

Moreover, this study contributed to Roger’s (2003) Model of Five Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process; when attitudes towards innovations are formed at the persuasion stage, they could be measured in three aspects: cognitive, affective and behavioural In addition, when the use of ICT in teaching English is an innovation, the findings of this study have gone some way towards enhancing our understanding of teachers’ attitudes towards it The study findings also provided further understanding of the factors that influence the EFL tertiary teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and their associations in the context of a developing country like Vietnam.

In practice, combining the two models can pave the way for researchers to examine individuals’ attitudes to using ICT, which have not been discussed in detail in the literature Besides, the notion of “individuals” can be expanded to people working in education, such as a group of teachers, students or university leaders who take the role of an ICT adopter.

The current research results are also significant to the Vietnamese tertiary EFL teachers because they provide insight into their attitudes towards the use of ICT in their teaching practice and the influence of factors on their attitudes The teachers can be more active and creative in applying ICT in their teaching and diffusing their ICT use among their professional communities As a result, it contributes to promoting innovation and creation in education in response to the Vietnamese government’s call for innovation in teaching methods.

Finally, at the policy level, the findings and discussion of this study are sources of reference in the development of policies and measures relating toEnglish Language Teaching in Vietnam, especially in the ICT implementation in teaching English I believe that by having an understanding of the current state of teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English and the associations with factors influencing their attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English,policymakers, university leaders, and ICT application developers can plan long- term attention to providing EFL tertiary teachers with the necessary support and training to foster their attitudes.

Structure of the thesis

The thesis comprised five Chapters Chapter 1 begins with an introduction to the research study, which includes the background of the study, the rationale of the study, the aims and research questions, the scope of the study and the significance of the study In Chapter 2, the literature on the subject of the study is systemically reviewed Various topics, including the concepts of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching, previous studies on teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching in general and in teaching English in particular, the factors influencing teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT, and the proposed theoretical framework of the study were reviewed and discussed This chapter aims to identify research gaps that this study seeks to address Chapter 3 provides a detailed description of the methodology used in the study, which includes the selection of worldview, research design, research context, population,participants and sampling, data collection instruments and procedure, data analysis, the quality of research, and ethical considerations Chapter 4 presents and discusses the findings of the study Chapter 5 summarises the main results,discusses the study’s contributions, and introduces the study’s theoretical and practical implications This final chapter also includes the study's limitations and suggestions for further research.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Conceptualisation of key terms

This section defines key terms used in this study to establish an understanding of the concepts or factors discussed throughout the current research study and the contextual information in which those concepts were used.

2.1.1 Conceptualising ICT in teaching English

Since its introduction in education, numerous researchers have attempted to define the concept of ICT in educational instruction Hew and Brush (2007) argued that it was whatever application of “computing devices such as desktop computers, laptops, handheld computers, software, or Internet in K-12 schools for instructional purposes.” (p 225) A similar definition was proposed by Drent and Meelissen (2008), who argued that it referred to educational tools to facilitate learning outcomes These educational tools might include Internet-based technologies, digital cameras, and computers (Davies & Hewer, 2012, as cited in

Dang, 2013) By contrast, Inan and Lowther (2010) categorised the technology into three broad groups: “technology for instructional preparation, technology for instructional delivery, and technology as a learning tool.” (p 138) His definition denoted teachers exploited specific technological tools to plan and deliver instructions and specialised applications to serve their students’ learning activities.

Concerning English language teaching, some researchers conceptualized ICT as the tools or applications used for specific EFL instructional purposes. Levy (1991), for instance, referred to it as the use of ICT applications and categorized them as corresponding to some particular objectives of EFL instruction, such as the enhancement of abilities and knowledge in vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, receptive skills, productive skills and intercultural insight for students Davies et al (2012) stated that the term ICT encompassed computer technologies and web-based technologies, which were classified into generic software applications (e.g., computer-mediated communication applications, word processing apps, presentation software, web browsers, and Web 2.0 applications) and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) software applications, which are beneficial to foreign language teaching.

It is noticeable that ICT is a broad term, and researchers have used diverse terms to refer to it Therefore, research into teachers’ attitudes towards the use ofICT in teaching English has employed various terms, such as technology,instructional technology, computers, CALL, web-based technologies, mobile- assisted language learning (MALL), digital technologies, technology-enhanced language learning (TELL), interchangeably to refer as attitude objects Hence, in this study, the term ICT was used to describe both the computer-based technologies covering the generic hardware products (e.g., printers, keyboards,speakers) and software applications (e.g., word processors, graphic apps and presentation apps), the web-based technologies (e.g., web browsers and web 2.0) and any educational technologies useful for English education (e.g., CALL,MALL, TELL and digital technologies).

2.1.2 Conceptualising teacher’s attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English

In social science, many studies have been devoted to conceptualising the construct of “attitudes” and their nature Banaji and Heiphetz (2010) indicated that different researchers had partially focused on particular aspects of the concept over the last century Some authors concentrated on attitudes’ mental aspect and directive function (Droba, 1933; Morgan, 1934, as cited in Allport, 1935; Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918) For example, Thomas and Znaniecki (2018) argued that attitude was “a process of individual consciousness which determines the real or possible activity of the individual in the social world.” (p 22) Droba (1933) also defined “an attitude is a mental disposition of the human individual to act for or against a definite object.” (p 451).

By contrast, some researchers defined attitudes by emphasising their more specific affective representations (Chave, 1928; Ewer, 1929) Specifically, Chave (1929) argues it is a complex of feelings, desires, fears, convictions, prejudices or other tendencies that have given a set or readiness to act to a person because of varied experiences In this definition, it is clear that feelings are mentioned directly; and desires, fears, convictions, and prejudices are quite clear affective states or emotions Meanwhile, several authors depict the behavioural aspect (Bogardus, 1931; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) For instance, Bogardus (1931) states,

“An attitude is a tendency to act toward or against something in the environment which becomes thereby a positive or negative value” (p 62) The definitions with such focuses (mental, affective or behavioural respects) faced hard criticism; attitudes have been mischaracterized as entities of some permanence (Banaji & Heiphetz, 2010).

After scrutinizing 16 prior definitions, Allport (1935) gave his concept of attitudes, which has been most cited so far; he stated, “An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related” (Allport, 1935, p 810) More simply, Fishbein andAjzen

(1975) argued that an attitude represented a general feeling of an individual, which could be favourableness or unfavourableness towards some stimulus object These favourable or unfavourable feelings were the same as the positive or negative values in Bogardus’ (1931) definition or the same as the affect for or against a psychological object in Thurstone's (1932) argument However, Allport

(1935) claimed that some attitudes were not readily categorised into either of these bipolar positions He wrote that it was challenging to reduce some attitudes, such as tolerant, open-minded, and complacent attitudes to “affect for or against” an attitude object (p 820).

Several researchers have defined attitudes based on their intra-attitudinal structure consisting of three components: affective, behavioural, and cognitive

(Crano & Prislin, 2006; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Matteson et al., 2016; Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960; Triandis, 1971) Rosenberg and Hovland (1960) stated that “attitudes are predispositions to respond to some class of stimuli with certain classes of responses and designate three major types of responses as cognitive, affective and behavioural.” (p 3) Triandis (1971) elaborated that attitudes comprised three components: cognitive, affective, and conative; that is, what a person thinks and feels, and how they tend to behave towards an object More specifically, the explanation of three components is as follows: The cognitive aspect refers to the idea that is generally some category humans use in thinking Consistent responses to different stimuli determine specific categories The affective element refers to the emotion associated with the idea.

If a person has positive emotions when thinking about the category, they have a positive affect, and if they have negative emotions, they have a negative affect;

The behavioural component is a predisposition to action.These components are often interdependent to a certain extent and interact dynamically with the environment. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) pointed out that psychologists have been given many viewpoints concerning the attitude concept They specified the need for a conceptual definition of attitudes with only essential characteristics, which “must be assessed in order to obtain a valid measure of attitude.” (p 11) Furthermore, they seemed to agree that an intra-attitudinal structure of cognitive, affective and behavioural components existed The cognitive component refers to knowledge or belief about something; the affective element is the feelings about something, and the behavioural part refers to acting in specific manners Although attitudes haven’t had an agreed-upon definition, most researchers have agreed that an attitude refers to someone’s positive or negative judgment of specific attitude objects or stimuli.

Rosenberg and Hovland (1960) proposed the Schematic Conception of Attitudes to cover the above arguments, which include all three components and their measurable presentations (see Figure 1).

A Schematic Conception of Attitudes by Rosenberg and Hovland (1960)

As Figure 1 clearly shows, attitudes comprise three components: cognition, affect and behaviour These components can be measured via verbal statements of belief or knowledge, affect and behaviour, respectively Also, as shown in Figure 1, the stimuli are grouped in a broad category: social matters, individuals, social groups, situations, or other attitudinal objects representing the attitude object Regarding the relationship between the three components, Triandis (1971) argues, “Although they are generally closely related, there are circumstances that can

STIMULI (individuals, situations, social issues, social groups, and other attitude objects

Perceptual responses Verbal statements of belief

Sympathetic nervous system responses Verbal statements of affect

Overt actions Verbal statements concerning behaviours BEHAVIOUR

AFFECTCOGNITION produce inconsistent components.” (p 4) His argument reflects the attitudinal structure’s complexity and attitudes' dynamic nature under specific situations. For example, an individual who has just been in a car accident may have a negative affective component (feels “bad” when he thinks about cars), but he may realize that he cannot get around in his town without using cars and, therefore, has positive behavioural component – is predisposed to use them. Another instance that a user might have a positive attitude towards an ICT application when he was first introduced to it However, his positive attitude can change to a negative one after he uses it for a certain period because he finds it incompatible with his context.

Attitude measurements

This sub-section gives a brief development history, the construction, and the strengths and weaknesses of the attitude measurements Based on these analyses and justifications, the employment of the most appropriate method of attitude measurement is justified.

Since its introduction to social psychology, researchers and psychologists have expressed interest in measuring attitudes Hence, several techniques have been developed Allport (1935) summarized that three methods had been utilised:The Census of Opinions, The a priori Scale, and The Psychophysical (Rational)Scale These techniques were essentially different in the construction procedures.The Census of Opinions is regarded as the most straightforward method for determining how common an attitude (really an opinion) may be in a specific population It is operated “by counting ballots or tabulating answers to a questionnaire.” (Allport, 1935, p 828).

The priori scale is formulated using a scoring technique and devised based on “logical rather than empirical considerations.” (Allport, 1935 p 829) This type of scale can be constructed in two formats: First, the questions or items with alternatives are presented on a single continuum to choose and to be equally space from the most favourable to the least favourable Each item is arbitrarily assigned a value of 1, 3, 5, 8 or 4 according to the author’s opinions of significance Another variation is that the respondents can rank all of the alternatives according to their preference; “these rank orders are then treated as though were equal intervals in the scale.” (Allport, 1935, p 829).

The last and the most powerful technique - The Psychophysical (Rational) Scale – are performed through a series of steps: an attitude of certain degree of affect is conceived to form scales that are necessarily done first; then, the scoring values are determined by many judges with their arrangements of all statements based on their discriminable differences; and finally, rational scales are generated with several “secured statements whose distance from one another on a single continuum are known.” (Allport, 1935, p 831).

The above three attitude measurement techniques reveal certain shortcomings and are criticised by researchers The range and distribution of public opinion can be measured using The Census of Opinions Nonetheless, the intensity of each view is not determined As a result, this method is not considered a proper scale of measurement (Allport, 1935) By contrast, the distances between each degree in the a priori scale are criticised for not being necessarily comparable and for being difficult to assume that each higher degree necessarily implies all lower ones Finally, although the psychophysical scale is considered the most significant and revolutionary, it is still formed by arrangements of attitudes, often discrete and highly individual, on a single continuum Moreover, the applicability of the scale values for statements obtained from one population to another might be in question.

To mitigate the drawbacks of the rational scale, in 1935, Likert developed a simple priori method by assigning arbitrary scores from one to five It is claimed to yield as reliable results as the psychophysical scores Since its inception, the Likert scale or the self-report Likert scale has been used as one of the most dominant data collection instruments in social research in general and attitude research in particular because of its convenience in measuring unobservable constructs In addition, this type of scale's development and validation process has been highly influential (Clark & Watson, 1995, 2019; Hinkin, 1998) It has also been used to gauge other topics' information (Jebb et al., 2021).

In research on the attitudes towards the use of information and communication technology, the Likert scale has been widely employed and proved to be an effective instrument Many researchers have used the Likert scale to investigate individuals’ attitudes towards ICT in education in general and in teaching English in particular (Albirini, 2006; Bannon et al., 1985; Capan, 2012;Cifuentes-Rojas et al., 2019; Mwila, 2018; Semerci & Aydın, 2018; Zhang &Aikman, 2007) These studies are empirical evidence of the Likert scale's relevance and effectiveness in exploring teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT.Therefore, in this study, I employed the Likert scale as the primary instrument to collect data for measuring teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teachingEnglish.

Some popular models for exploring users’ attitudes towards using ICT

Being aware of the critical roles of teachers’ attitudes in the rejection or successful adoption of ICT in teaching practice, researchers in this field have proposed a few models centring on the three components of attitudes: cognitive,affective and behavioural In addition, the key factors influencing the attitudes and their associations with the attitudes have been identified and discussed This sub- section reviews the three most popular models for exploring users' attitudes towards the use of ICT in which key constructs, the merits and drawbacks of model are discussed to provide the theoretical foundation for establishing the conceptual framework of the current research study The models below are those most adopted by researchers in the field of ICT to serve as the conceptual framework for their studies on users’ attitudes towards using ICT.

In an attempt to determine the effects of system characteristics on user acceptance of new technological products, Davis (1986) developed and validated a theoretical model called the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PE) (see Figure 2) are two particular beliefs which “are of primary relevance for computer acceptance behaviours” (F.

D Davis et al., 1989, p 985) PU is “the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job performance.” (F D. Davis, 1989, p 320) This definition is derived from the word ‘useful’: “capable of being used advantageously” (F D Davis, 1989, p 320) Besides, PE refers to

“the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free of effort.” (F D Davis, 1989, p 320) This definition was rooted in ‘ease’:

“freedom from difficulty or great effort” (F D Davis, 1989, p 320) These two variables were hypothesized to be the fundamental determinants of user acceptance As shown in Figure 2, users’ attitudes towards using can predict the actual use of the technological system or ICT, and it is mediated by users’ behavioural intention to use Furthermore, a user’s attitude towards using a technology system was affected by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.

A fundamental purpose of TAM is to provide a basis for tracing the impact of external factors on internal beliefs, attitudes, and intentions (F D. Davis et al., 1989) Using ICT in teaching English is an innovation for many teachers, so it is possible that using TAM can help researchers explore and explain teachers’ use of ICT in teaching English However, the TAM model does not specify three aspects of attitudes to investigate Besides, it is limited in incorporating other variables impacting teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching, such as ICT access and teachers’ characteristics.

2.3.2 The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology

The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was introduced by Venkatesh et al in 2003 As shown in Figure 3, the theoretical model consists of four core constructs indicating the factors influencing the use behaviour or the intention to use, which are critical determinants of technology acceptance The four theoretical constructs are Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence, and Facilitating Conditions Along with these variables, the theory also incorporates Moderating Factors that impact the connections between the various constructs and Intention to Use These Moderators comprise Gender, Age, Experience, and Voluntariness of use.

The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh et al., 2003)

Since its introduction, many studies have been conducted to empirically validate or theoretically contribute to the theory in different geographical and cultural settings or replicate its results (Ahmad, 2014) Although UTAUT has been widely used to investigate users’ attitudes towards the use of technology, it has certain limitations First, the theory has a narrow focus on individual-level factors It fails to consider the broader social and institutional context in which technology is used, which may reduce the extent to which user behaviour may be explained in real-world settings Another shortcoming is that UTAUT assumes users accept technology through a rational decision-making process In reality, users’ attitudes and behaviour towards technology are often influenced by various subjective and emotional factors (Huang et al., 2019; Player-Koro, 2012; Raygan & Moradkhani, 2020; Rogers, 2003; Zhao & Frank, 2003) Using the

“behavioural intention” construct to represent users’ attitudes simplifies the complexity of the intra- attitudinal structure This theory, therefore, can also result in insufficient explanations about users’ behaviour Concerning the nature of my inquiry, UTAUT does not fit well with the research objectives, subjects and setting.

One of the dominant theories explaining technology adoption and diffusion process is Rogers’ “Diffusion of Innovation” (2003) This theory was introduced in 1995 and founded on a meta-analysis of 2,585 empirical studies on innovation across diverse disciplines By 2003, 5,200 studies reported adopting the diffusion of innovation framework to inquire about the spread of new ideas, practices and objects (Rogers, 2003) Due to its broad applicability, much research using this theory continues to be conducted Rogers also argues that the Internet’s widespread diffusion has changed “the nature of the diffusion process” (Rogers, 2003, p viii) He also indicates that most of the new ideas in diffusion research are technological innovations, so he uses the term “technology” and

“innovation” interchangeably (Rogers, 2003, pp 12-13) As a result, the diffusion of innovation framework appears to be suited for research into ICT diffusion.

According to Roger (2003), four interacting elements are involved in the diffusion process: innovation, communication channels, time and the social system He defines “diffusion as the process by which (1) an innovation (2) is communicated through certain channels (3) over time (4) among the members of a social system.” (Rogers, 2003, p 11) The four constructs in his definitions are described as follows:

“An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.” (Rogers, 2003, p 12) He adds that the newness of the innovation may refer to the knowledge, persuasion, or decision to adopt Regarding technological innovation, Rogers suggests that technology is “a means of uncertainty reduction” secured by information about the causal relationships based on technology (Rogers, 2003, p 13), which helps an individual resolve his perceived problems Yet, he also states that it can be the source of uncertainty about its consequences when potential adopters seek information about the innovation He further highlights that the decision to adopt or reject an innovation can be reached when the information-seeking process is complete, and uncertainty about the innovation’s expected consequences is reduced.

“A communication channel is the means by which messages get from one individual to another.” (Rogers, 2003, p 18) Rogers identified the two main communication channels as mass media and interpersonal channels Despite the mass media channels’ rapidity and efficiency in informing the existence of innovation, they are empirically shown to be less effective in persuading an individual to accept a new idea than interpersonal channels Empirical research shows that most individuals mainly adopt the innovation based on the subjective evaluation of their near peers who have experienced the innovation rather than based on objective scientific studies of its consequences (Rogers, 2003) These findings suggest that the diffusion process is very social and involves interpersonal communication relationships.

The Time of diffusion involves three dimensions: (1) the innovation- decision process through which an individual moves from being introduced to innovation to either accepting or rejecting it; (2) the innovativeness of an individual or other unit of adoption in terms of their relative earliness or lateness in adopting an innovation compared to other system members, and (3) the rate of adoption which is generally evaluated by the number of members who adopt the innovation over a specified period (Rogers, 2003) According to Rogers, the adoption rate can be illustrated by an S-shaped curve representing four stages from slow, gradual increase to rapid climb before levelling off, followed by a declining phase till the diffusion process ends.

A social system refers to a social community in which interrelated units or individuals jointly resolve a problem to achieve a common goal (Rogers, 2003). Several factors of the social system’s structure influence the diffusion of innovation in specific ways, such as social norms, opinion leaders, change agents, types of innovation decisions, and consequences of innovations Change agents are frequently responsible for introducing innovation into a client system with the expectation of desirable, direct, and anticipated outcomes (Rogers, 2003).

The four elements account for the change process caused by the stakeholders, including individuals, decision-makers, or whole organisations. Rogers argues that the successful adoption and diffusion of innovation depend mainly on the agents of change, which might differ across disciplines (Rogers, 2003) In education, many researchers have identified teachers as the key agents of change behind the closed doors of the classrooms (Drent & Meelissen, 2008; V.

The conceptual framework of the study

After reviewing the literature on attitudes, I found that the Schematic Conception of Attitudes Model proposed by both Rosenberg and Hovland (1960) seems the most relevant to my study As mentioned in the previous section (see 2.1.2), this model clearly shows the three components of attitudes, suggests ways to explore the attitudes, and presents the stimuli or factors triggering the attitude. Among five groups of stimuli (individuals, situations, social issues, social groups, and other attitude objects), the last group, attitude objects, is relatively open, allowing the researcher to include any potential variables for examination. The Schematic Conception of Attitudes Model is sometimes called The ABC Model of Attitudes (Long-Crowell, 2020), in which ABC stands for Affective, Behavioural and Cognitive components.

Supposing attitudes are the specific teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English; when referring to Rogers’ (2003) Model of Five Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process, the stimuli in The Schematic Conception of Attitudes Model can be identified as equivalently as follow.

A Reference of Stimuli in the Schematic Conception of Attitudes to the Constructs in Model of Five Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process

A Model of Five Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process

Felt needs/ problems Social issues

Social groups The social systems

Other attitude objects The Innovation

The Schematic Conception of Attitudes proposed by Rosenberg andHovland (1960) for studying attitudes can fit well into Rogers’ (2003) Model ofFive Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process, as in Figure 5 In this model, the use of ICT in teaching English was considered an innovation As mentioned in the previous section (see Section 2.3.3), the Model of Five Stages in the Innovation- Decision Process depicts the broad process of an innovation’s diffusion; therefore, it can be used as a theoretical framework for researchers to examine the success or failure of an entire diffusion process However, the current study focuses on the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English formed in stage 2, which suggests that only the two first stages are relevant to be adopted as the theoretical framework for the study Hence, the conceptual framework for this study could be drawn as follow (see Figure 6).

As can be seen from Figure 6, if a researcher wants to explore the teachers’ attitudes, he/she has to gauge the teachers’ opinions (favourable, neutral, unfavourable) about the use of ICT in teaching English and factors affecting their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English These factors include the prior conditions, the characteristics of decision-making units and the perceived characteristics of the innovation In turn, they need to investigate the sub- components of these factors This approach was used for identifying research scopes and constructing the data collection instruments.

To obtain the objectives of the study and based on the review of literature related to attitudes, I adopted Rosenberg and Hovland’s (1960) SchematicConception of Attitudes and the first two stages in Rogers’ (2003) Model of FiveStages in the Innovation-Decision Process, to serve as the conceptual framework for my study.

The Integration of Rosenberg and Hovland’s (1960) Schematic Conception of Attitudes into Rogers’ (2003) Model of Five Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process

The Conceptual Framework of the Study

Sympathetic nervous system responses Verbal statements of affect

Ch ar act eri sti cs of th e

1. oci oe co no mi c ch aracterist ics

Perceiv ed Charact eristics of the Innovati on

Sympathetic nervous system responses Verbal statements of affect

Overt actions Verbal statements concerning behaviours

Teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English

This section describes the previous research issues relating to teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English It starts with highlighting the crucial roles of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in education Next, the previous studies on the use of ICT in teaching English at the tertiary level in Vietnam are reviewed to provide the research background for the study of tertiary teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching Finally, the prior research studies into EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English, followed by the associations between factors influencing teachers’ attitudes and their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English, were reviewed to point out the gaps the current study can fill.

2.5.1 The roles of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in education

Previous research has suggested that ICT can make a difference in students’ learning However, such a learning change can only be gained if multiple factors affecting the success from factors related to individuals (e.g. skills, knowledge, attitude and belief), implementation process (e.g planning, responsibility, quality of resources and people involved) and to the whole organization (e.g external influences, leadership, organizational culture) are considered in the process of implementation (Tearle, 2003) Recent research indicated that the successful implementation of educational technologies is mainly contingent upon educators’ attitudes, as they ultimately determine the extent to which these technologies are employed in the classroom For example, Bullock (2004) argued teachers’ attitudes were crucial in enabling or impeding technology adoption Similarly, Kersaint et al (2003) found that educators with positive attitudes toward technology were likelier to feel comfortable using and integrating it into their teaching practice.

Woodrow (1992) argued that developing a positive attitude toward new technology among users was necessary for any successful transformation in educational practices Therefore, fostering positive attitudes towards ICT among educators was critical for enhancing ICT integration and preventing resistance to computer use (Watson, 1998) Watson (1998) cautioned against disconnecting

37 innovation from the classroom teacher, stating that the teacher should not be viewed as an empty vessel into which an externally defined innovation must be poured.

Moseley et al (1999) studied the attitudes of a small sample of teachers and found that teachers who successfully used ICT had a positive rather than negative attitude towards ICT Furthermore, teachers with positive attitudes towards ICT would be positively disposed towards using it in the classroom. Similarly, in a review of factors affecting teachers’ use of ICT, Mumtaz (2000) pointed out that teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning with ICT were central to integration As argued, teachers’ beliefs or knowledge about using ICT represent the cognitive component of attitudes (Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960).

The critical roles of teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching and learning continue to be highlighted in the research conducted in recent years when governments, especially those from developing countries, have called for a transformation from education with traditional teaching practice into digital platform-based practice (Aydın & Semerci, 2018; Baturay et al., 2017; Birgit & Mario, 2017; Latio, 2009) In research with 256 teachers from high schools in Ohio, Latio revealed that “teachers’ attitude towards computer use in classroom instruction, and perceived value of computers in instruction were predictors of the extent of teachers’ computer use for classroom instruction” (Latio, 2009, p. 4) Birgit and Mario (2017) emphasized that teachers’ “attitudes and beliefs enable or hinder the adoption of technology by teachers” in educational settings (p 9) Recent research conducted by Aydın and Semerci (2018) and Raygan and Moradkhani (2020) reinforced that teachers’ ICT attitudes have gained currency regarding the effective integration of ICT in today’s educational settings.

In summary, prior research has indicated that teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT play the most crucial role in their successful ICT adoption and implementation in education These findings suggest educational research should pay sufficient attention to exploring teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching Moreover, these studies should examine the factors influencing their

38 attitudes to make suitable plans and policies for nurturing and fostering favourable attitudes, which might result in the fruitful implementation of ICT in educational settings for a better quality of teaching and learning.

2.5.2 Previous studies on the use of ICT in teaching English at the tertiary level in Vietnam

In Vietnam, numerous studies have been conducted to document the current status of ICT use in teaching English at the tertiary level For instance, Dang (2011) conducted a document analysis and argued that factors such as teachers’ proficiency levels, traditional teaching methods, current grammar- dominated testing, limited materials and resources, and lack of computer applications in classrooms could lead to low quality in EFL teaching in Vietnam.

He advised that technology tools should be implemented in a context like Vietnam since they offer students additional exciting and engaging language activities and ensure better autonomy, interaction, and connectivity In addition, he claimed that in response to the Vietnamese government’s call for innovation in language teaching and learning, CALL could be considered a solution to compensate for the shortcomings in EFL teaching In his perspective, CALL provides additional means for teachers and students to accomplish tasks more effectively and efficiently He made a valuable attempt to identify various CALL options for grammar and vocabulary instructions, teaching pronunciation, and teaching language skills to alleviate Vietnamese teachers’ burdens, motivating student learning and eventually improving the quality of EFL education in Vietnam He suggested selecting appropriate technologies based on the instructors’ teaching styles, the course and the learners Websites or available materials need to have a high level of accuracy, authenticity, currency, objectivity, and coverage However, Dang (2011) did not focus on teachers’ attitudes towards using CALL in teaching Engish, which could be considered a study's shortcoming.

Nguyen (2011) carried out a qualitative to examine Vietnamese learners’ reflections on and perceptions of applying computer-mediated communication(CMC) in collaborative learning with 30 teacher trainees from an EFL class in

College of Foreign Languages, University of Danang Data was gathered from an evaluation questionnaire and interviews The results showed that most participants enjoyed the technology-enhanced class (synchronous and asynchronous CMC) The students agreed that the course helped improve their computer skills and collaborative experience but remained sceptical about improving their English language skills Nonetheless, the participants believed the technology-embedded courses should be continued and developed on a larger scale With the focus on the reflections on and perceptions of applying computer- mediated communication, this study pointed out teachers had favourable feelings and beliefs about using computer-mediated contact Still, it was limited to identifying the relationships with factors influencing their feelings and beliefs.

Dang (2013) also conducted a mixed-method research project to investigate current practices and factors affecting ICT use at an innovative university in Vietnam The findings showed seven barriers (lack of adequate ICT training, disadvantages for teachers, lack of leadership support, limited access to ICT facilities, pressure from others, technical problems and lack of guidelines) and four enablers (positive beliefs, attitudes and experience, ease of ICT use, teacher perception of ICT benefits and perceived ICT benefits for students) This study made significant contributions to pointing out the barriers and enablers affecting ICT use at a Vietnamese university However, little attention was paid to investigating teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in their instruction.

Similarly, Dinh (2015) also conducted a mixed-method study to investigate the factors influencing EFL teachers’ use of ICT in classroom practice at a university in Vietnam She pointed out that teachers’ ‘Beliefs in ICT benefits in EFL teaching’ and ‘Knowledge and skills in using ICT to teaching EFL’ had the most significant impact on their ICT use (Dinh, 2015, p 155) Researchers have found that the use of ICT in teaching English is limited to some extent. Firstly, although ICT use is appreciated in teaching EFL in higher education, “it is mainly used to replace existing teaching practice, in a very limited way”(Peeraer et al., 2009, p 1) Additionally, due to the limited staff training provisions and a lack of

41 understanding of the complexities involved in implementing technologies in teaching and learning English, progress towards “the master plan” of the country has been slow (Vu, 2014, p 20).

Due to the sudden shift of instruction methods from traditional and physical classes to virtual classes with the mandatory use of ICT during the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, many research studies have been conducted to report on this new change These research projects have mainly investigated models of organising teaching and learning activities to suggest effective ICT implementation to achieve educational goals (N K Mai & Khac, 2021; Ngo &

Ha, 2022; Pham et al., 2021) Some other studies reported the challenges and opportunities of online English language learning (Ho & Ha, 2021; Vo, 2022). Few studies explored Vietnamese EFL teacher-related personal factors such as attitudes towards, satisfaction with and beliefs about this new mode of instruction (N T Mai & Bao, 2020; Pham et al., 2021).

In research with 206 Vietnamese tertiary teachers, Pham et al (2021) carried out a mixed-method research project to report the implementation of online learning in a public university in Hanoi and to investigate the teachers’ satisfaction with online learning The authors emphasized that teachers’ satisfaction determined the quality of teaching and learning activities This argument entails that online teaching and learning quality depends on the teachers’ satisfaction with this mode of instruction The exploration of the factors affecting teachers’ satisfaction revealed that four primary groups of elements having significant correlations with teachers’ satisfaction, namely teacher-related factors, the institution’s deployment of online learning, student-related factors, and other related factors (demographic factors, the Internet connection and fields of teaching) Teacher-related factors include teachers’ Internet competence,attitudes towards online education, teacher-student interaction, and class management capacity The results showed that teacher-related factors could predict teachers’ satisfaction with online education.

Gaps in the previous studies

The review of related literature has shown that the studies on EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English are limited in quantity in Vietnam Even the limited number of studies contain some shortcomings First of all, most studies are methodologically limited Most of these studies utilised only one technique or method of data collection, like a questionnaire survey (quantitative) or interview (qualitative), whereas few studies combined questionnaire and interview instruments (Tran et al., 2023) As mentioned in the previous section, a teacher’s attitude is a complex, multi- dimensional psychological construct, and a single method is insufficient to explore teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English Therefore, a mixed-method approach combining quantitative and qualitative techniques should be adopted to ensure the validity of the findings.

Secondly, some researchers conducted a case study focusing on several teachers or small-scale research with limited participants to gather information about teachers’ attitudes These findings might not be representative of other cases or settings This limitation suggests that larger-scale studies should be carried out. Thirdly, the success of using ICT in English teaching, as discussed in the previous section, depends on external and internal factors (Ertmer & Ottenbreit- Leftwich,

2010) However, research studies investigating factors affecting

63 teachers’ attitudes are limited in their scope Specifically, they have focus on several factors such as teachers’ personal factors or pedagogical beliefs It, therefore, would be impossible for them to provide a comprehensive insight into a set of factors associated with the teachers’ attitudes as argued in Rogers' (2003) or Zhao and Frank's (2003) research studies This limitation implies that more comprehensive research into factors (the scope of variables) affecting teachers’ attitudes should be conducted to solve this persistent puzzle Besides, previous research studies have yielded contradictory findings about the associations between factors affecting teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and their attitudes (Tran et al., 2023) Hence, it is necessary to make further inquiries to provide more empirical evidence on these associations.

Finally, to my knowledge, there have been limited research projects to explore EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English in Vietnam There have been no similar research studies at Windy University As Shameem (2015) and Albirini (2004) pointed out, cultural and institutional factors significantly influenced their attitudes towards using ICT in their teaching practices Therefore, the results of one case could not be generalised to another of a different culture without further research As a result, research into Vietnamese EFL teachers’ attitudes towards ICT use would significantly contribute to the gap in the existing literature in this field of study.

Previous research also indicated that the major factor influencing teachers’ICT use in their classes is their attitude towards ICT In this regard, teachers’ attitudes towards ICT use are regarded as the driving force behind their ICT use behaviour in many studies (Aydın & Semerci, 2018) As discussed above, for most EFL teachers from Windy University, the use of ICT in teaching English is considered an innovation Hence, teachers’ attitudes play a significant role in incorporating ICT into their classes However, no studies have been conducted to investigate Windy University’s teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT inEnglish teaching Thus, there is a need for further studies to examine teachers’ attitudes towards ICT use in English teaching in the current research setting.

Given these gaps, my desire to contribute to the enhancement of WindyUniversity’s teachers’ current practice of using ICT for English language teaching urges me to carry out the study to explore the teachers’ attitudes and the factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English.

Summary of the chapter

This chapter has provided an in-depth understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the study in terms of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English; their intra-attitudinal structure with three components (cognitive, affective and behavioural), the methods and techniques to measure attitudes; and the factors influencing teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English This chapter has also discussed three popular models employed so far to examine users’ attitudes to predict the adoption/ acceptance of ICT and the proposed theoretical framework of the study Finally, a review of prior studies on teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English has been conducted to identify the research gaps the current study tries to occupy.

METHODOLOGY

The researcher’s worldview

In conducting research, an investigator follows his/ her paradigm, which may be defined as a worldview or “a way of looking at the world” (Mertens, 2015, p 55) It is composed of certain philosophical assumptions that guide and direct thinking and action” (Mertens, 2015, p 55) Similarly, Creswell and Clark (2018) argue this worldview is “composed of beliefs and assumptions about knowledge that informs their study” (p 70) Creswell (2013) pointed out that the individual researcher’s types of beliefs and assumptions tend to lead them to embrace a qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approach As such, a worldview consists of a set of logically related propositions or philosophical assumptions concerning the nature of reality (ontology), knowledge of that reality (epistemology) and the ways of knowing that reality (methodology) (Cohen et al., 2018; Creswell, 2013; Lincoln et al., 2018; Mertens, 2015).

In this research study, I took a pragmatic view; that is, I made methodological decisions that enabled me to investigate what is of significance to me (Teddie & Tashakkori, 2009) Pragmatists insist that a methodology is selected based on its suitability for answering the posed research question. (Glogowska, 2011) and whether it can help the researcher achieve the research purposes (Mertens, 2015) Often, a pragmatic orientation “is typically associated with mixed methods research” (Creswell & Clark, 2018, p 72), as was the case in this study One of the reasons I decided to conduct this study was that I wished to obtain a rich understanding of EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT

English and factors affecting their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teachingEnglish at Windy University Therefore, I collected quantitative and qualitative data to address my specific questions Further details on the selection of a mixed methods approach are discussed below.

Selection of research methodology

As argued by many researchers, qualitative research and quantitative research provide different pictures or perspectives, and each has its strengths and limitations (Creswell, 2013; Mertens, 2015; Johnson & Christensen, 2014; Cohen et al., 2018) These researchers also agreed that combining quantitative and qualitative data could provide a more comprehensive understanding of the research problem than either approach When arguing the research problems that are best suited to each type of research methodology, Creswell and Clark (2018) claimed that while quantitative research may be best to understand the relationship among variables or determine if one group performs better on an outcome than another group, the qualitative research may be best to explore a problem, honour the voices of participants, map the complexity of the situation, and convey multiple perspectives of participants.

Regarding the research problems which are best suited the mixed methods research, Creswell and Clark (2018) argued:

In general, research problems suited for mixed methods are those in which one data source may be insufficient Further, results often need to be explained, exploratory findings need to be generalized, a primary experimental design needs to be expanded or enhanced, multiple cases need to be compared or contrasted, the participants need to be involved in the research, and/ or a program needs to be evaluated (p 40).

In this study, a quantitative questionnaire was designed to collect quantifiable information about the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT, the associations between their attitudes and factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English However, the findings from the quantitative analysis might not be able to provide a comprehensive picture of teachers’ use of

ICT (attitudes and affecting factors) in teaching English, or some findings need further explanations For example, the quantitative results might show that teachers were willing to use ICT in their teaching, but these results could not indicate how this willingness was Therefore, qualitative semi-structured interviews could gain insight into teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English Specifically, using semi-structured interviews, the researcher could ask participants about the actual use of ICT in their teaching so that the researcher could understand their overt behaviours better, which belongs to the behavioural component of attitudes.

The use of multiple sources of data collection can also serve the purpose of triangulation (L Cohen et al., 2018; Creswell, 2013; Denzin, 2017; Mertens, 2015), thus helping to enhance the validity of a study However, in the current study, Denzin's (2017) conceptualisation of “between or cross-method triangulation” (p 308) was used Denzin (2017) defined this triangulation method as a combination of “dissimilar methods to measure the same unit” (p 308) He also argued the rationale for using this method was that the weaknesses of one method are often the strengths of another Researchers also can attain the best of each by combining methods while overcoming their unique shortcomings For this type of triangulation, the purpose was not to achieve identical findings because “the perspectives and theoretical assumptions behind the methods differ” (Williamson, 2005, p 9) Instead, this type of triangulation was used as a strategy for “deepening the analysis in studies” (Williamson, 2005, p 10) or explaining some findings from survey questionnaires The objectives of the current study were to explore teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English at nine different affiliated institutions under Windy University and to investigate the associations with several factors, such as ICT access and teachers’ characteristics The quantitative method could reveal information about teachers’ attitudes or the associations, but it failed to indicate why they had those attitudes or why there were such associations After analysing the quantitative data, some results (discrepancies and contradictions) which needed further explanation or deepening

69 were identified, and semi-structured interviews with participants were employed to collect their opinions, ideas or justifications about the results obtained from the questionnaire.

In summary, my employment of the qualitative method after the quantitative phase aimed at getting a more comprehensive understanding of the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and explaining some possibly emerging discrepant and contradictory findings from the qualitative method.

Research design

Researchers with different worldviews tend to follow different research methods and therefore debate the correctness and appropriateness of their respective strategies (L Cohen et al., 2018; Creswell, 2013; Creswell & Clark, 2018) The qualitative-quantitative debates in the late 1980s and early 1990s are examples (L Cohen et al., 2018; Johnson & Christensen, 2014; Lincoln et al., 2018) Quantitative and qualitative methods have vast differences in ontology, epistemology, sample size and their uses of scientific language (Creswell, 2013; Mertens, 2015) Quantitative researchers (at least those who are positivist in their paradigm) frequently view truth as singular or universal, whereas qualitative researchers (who are most frequently interpretive or transformative in their paradigm) view truths as multiple or relative (L Cohen et al., 2018; Creswell, 2013; Mertens, 2015).

By combining quantitative and qualitative methods, the mixed methods approach respects the wisdom of both worldviews (Biesta & Burbules, 2003; Cohen et al., 2018; Creswell, 2013; Lincoln et al., 2018) It is argued that researchers can hold different worldviews, which may lean either more towards

“objective” reality or more towards “subjective” reality (Creswell, 2013, p 537).Working within a pragmatic paradigm provides space to respect worldview differences by incorporating them into the same study This study followed the explanatory sequential mixed methods design Specifically, the study involved a two-phase data collection project I collected quantitative data from the survey

70 questionnaire in the first phase, analyzed the results, and then used the results to plan (or build on) the next qualitative phase when the semi-structured interviews were done.

Extensive debates have resulted in the acceptance of the possibility of merging quantitative research with qualitative research in one study In a single study or series of investigations, qualitative and quantitative work can be performed concurrently or sequentially (Sale et al., 2002) The literature has shown that mixed methods have been increasingly used in education research (Teddie & Tashakkori, 2009; Creswell & Clark, 2018; Cohen et al., 2018). Mixed methods can combine the strengths of both quantitative data (numbers) and qualitative data (words) in one study (Creswell, 2013; Mackenzie & Knipe, 2006; Johnson & Christensen, 2014) This approach helps gain a more comprehensive understanding of the research questions’ answers than that provided by a single data type (Creswell, 2013; Mertens, 2015; Teddie & Tashakkori, 2009) Furthermore, cross-validation can be achieved by combining the different quantitative and qualitative data sources to investigate the same research problem (Creswell & Clark, 2018; Johnson & Christensen, 2014; Teddie

& Tashakkori, 2009) The quantitative and qualitative data of the current study can supplement each other to offer an in-depth understanding of the research problems.

For mixed-methods studies, besides considering the purpose for mixing(such as for between-methods triangulation as discussed above), another critical decision a researcher has to make is where to mix (Creswell, 2013; Creswell &Clark, 2018; Teddie & Tashakkori, 2009) Fetters et al (2013) suggested that mixing or “integration” (p 2134), as they name it, could happen at three levels,namely at the research design level, at the methods level and the interpretation and reporting level At the research design level, this study followed an explanatory sequential strategy The researcher first collected and analyzed quantitative data, and then the findings informed qualitative data collection and analysis (Creswell, 2013; Fetters et al., 2013; Ivankova et al., 2006) Thus, the questionnaire data were first collected, and analysis was used to answer the

72 used to inform or design questions for the later interview data collection The interview data were analysed to explain the research problems further.

At the methods level, mixing happens “through connecting occurs when one type of data links with the other through the sampling frame” (Fetters et al.,

2013, p 2139) Specifically, in this study, the participants completed the questionnaire and then indicated whether they would like to participate further in interviews Finally, integration happened at the “interpreting and reporting level through narrative” (Fetters et al., 2013, p 2142); the data from the questionnaire and interviews were analysed separately and then mixed at the interpretation stage through narrative In this study, the interview data were mainly used to explain or deepen the understanding of the research problems, so mixing was at this level.

Research context

Windy University dates back to 1994 and is one of the three comprehensive regional universities in the northeast mountainous area of Vietnam The management model is like an “umbrella” system in which Windy University functions as a management board comprising nine affiliated institutions (Ins.) Each institution has autonomous rights and the rector/ principal who has legal rights to make decisions on finance, human resources, and policies. However, the system must still follow the instructions and guidelines issued by the Government and the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET).

Students of Windy University comprised both English-major and non-English major students Most students, primarily non-English major students, had poor command of English The university leaders and English teachers have paid much attention to improving students’ English language proficiency, but the outcomes have been limited (T T H Nguyen, 2021; Thanh et al., 2020) Many students could not use English to communicate at a basic level Windy University has issued several regulations regarding its graduates' foreign language proficiency requirements In 2017, the requirements applied to their graduates until 2021 were level A2 (for non-English major students) and C1 (for English major students)

(Windy University, 2017) Since 2021, non-English major students have been required to achieve a B1 level for graduation (Windy University, 2020).

To enhance English language teaching, Windy University had the directions to strengthen the use of ICT to innovate the teaching methodology and improve the teaching quality (Windy University, 2015) So far, financial investments have been made to purchase computers, speakers, projectors, and interactive boards; and to install language laboratories, LMS and studios. However, these facilities still need to be expanded For example, most affiliated universities do not have language laboratories When this study was conducted, only the institution specialising in foreign language training had a studio for producing video lessons Some commercialised coursebooks such as the

“Life” series, “Skillful” series and “English for Medicine and Pharmacy” have been employed as official coursebooks for students These coursebooks are partially designed based on the blended-learning model with their Learning Management System (LMS), which can provide teachers and students with ubiquitous online access to learning materials In some cases, students are obliged to fulfil certain levels of online learning activities (e.g., 80%) to sit for the end-term exams At the same time, in other instances, teachers have used online materials as a supplement and let students exploit them voluntarily.

Many EFL teachers have proactively used ICT in their teaching They have used their personal computers, mobile phones, projectors, language labs, generic software applications (e.g., Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, and audio players) and specific software applications (e.g., Pronunciation Power, Lingoes and Audacity) Besides, they have exploited free websites to support their teaching and student communications, such as https://quizlet.com, http://facebook.com and https://www.esl-lab.com In summary, teachers have been using various types of ICT for compulsory and voluntary purposes.

In addition to investment in ICT facilities, Windy University has paid attention to improving English teachers' ICT competence to meet the requirements for successful ICT use in teaching and education innovation Since

University has sent teachers to participate in ICT training courses and urged other teachers to utilise ICT By the time this research project was conducted, about half of the teachers had been formally sent to attend such ICT training courses; others had learned to use ICT on their own The Departments/ Faculties of English sometimes organised workshops/ seminars on using ICT in teaching. Teachers have been introduced to new ICT applications and skills they may have adopted by participating in ICT training courses or workshops in their specific teaching contexts However, their ICT practices have revealed that each teacher has their ways and levels of competence in using ICT in their teaching Many teachers have been confidently willing to use ICT, while others seem to need help and may use it only perfunctorily.

According to Salinas et al (2016), teachers use technology in different ways: as a tool to facilitate administrative tasks, as a way to communicate with parents and students and to support teaching specific content This situation also seemed to be happening at Windy University In addition, ICT applications used for educational purposes continue to develop and embrace new updates.Therefore, it could be argued for many of Windy University’s English teachers,the use of ICT in teaching English can be considered an innovation This situation suggested their decision to use and diffuse ICT in teaching English was supposed to follow the Model of Five Stages in the Innovation – DecisionProcess (Rogers, 2003).

Participants and sampling strategies

The target population of the current study consisted of 138 English teachers working at Windy University, 112 of whom participated in the study.They were teaching at nine affiliated institutions under Windy University.Female teachers accounted for a majority of teachers They all had master's or doctoral degrees and experience using ICT to teach English.

Sampling involves “selecting units of analysis (e.g., people, groups, artifacts, settings)” to maximize the researcher’s ability to answer research questions (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003, p 715) In a sequential mixed method sampling, the first strand’s results inform the methodology employed in the second strand (Bickman & Rog, 2009) In this study, the sampling strategies in the qualitative phase were informed by the results obtained in the quantitative step.

3.5.2.1 Sampling Strategies for the questionnaire survey

Methodologists have written excellent discussions about the underlying logic of sampling theory (Babbie, 2012; Creswell, 2013; Ruel et al., 2016). Sampling methods can be random or non-random Nonrandom sampling consists of convenience, quota, purposive, snowball, and respondent-driven sampling. Creswell (2013) argued “only a convenience sample” is possible because the investigator must use naturally formed groups (e.g., a classroom, an organization, a family unit) or volunteers (p 168).

When the researcher uses convenience sampling, many elements could be selected for the sample because of the ease of including them or their availability (Ruel et al., 2016) Specifically, Ruel et al., (2016) mentioned that “the closest respondents to those administering the survey, such as family, friends, and colleagues”, could be included in the sample (p 258) Therefore, in this research study, I employed convenience sampling to collect quantitative data because it was accessible for me to administer the questionnaire to my colleagues It also was time-saving and cost-effective More importantly, there were only a small number of teachers (138 teachers), so I would like all teachers to have opportunities to raise their voices in their application of ICT in their teaching practice The sample comprised 138 teachers responsible for teaching English at Windy University.

3.5.2.2 Sampling Strategies for the semi-structured interviews

After data on the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teachingEnglish had been provided by a larger group of 112 participating teachers, ten

77 teachers were purposively selected to capture further the teachers’ experiences,

78 feelings, and opinions about using ICT in teaching In qualitative research, purposive sampling is defined as the researchers’ intentional strategy to select (or recruit) participants who have had direct experience with the fundamental phenomenon or key concept under investigation (Creswell & Clark, 2011).

Among the available strategies, “maximal variation sampling, in which diverse individuals are chosen” (Creswell & Clark, 2011, p 174) is the most common The selected participants embrace different views about the central phenomena Although the criteria set forth to choose the targeted participants depend on the study, these criteria must differentiate these participants (Creswell

& Clark, 2011) Therefore, the participants selected for the semi-structured interviews in this study were required to satisfy the following criteria: (1) those who had completed the questionnaire in the quantitative phase; (2) were willing to participate in the current study; (3) were from different affiliated institutions of Windy University; (4) possessed different educational levels; (5) those who were males and females; (6) were novice and experienced teaching English; (7) were from different age groups; (8) had different monthly income; and (9) had and had not taken part in training programs to use ICT in teaching English These criteria represented differences in teachers’ characteristics and ICT access in their institutions Their answers could provide diverse but in-depth insights into their experience and feeling about using ICT in their teaching practice These provided evidence to explain or confirm the quantitative results, especially the associations between teachers’ attitudes and their characteristics and ICT access.

In qualitative research, having a smaller population enables the researcher to gain a deeper understanding of the individual’s context, and qualitative research findings are to “generalize to theory rather than to populations”(Bryman, 2012, p 406) Considering this theory and combined with the above criteria, 10 out of 112 teachers from all nine affiliated members of WindyUniversity were selected to engage in the semi-structured interviews Each participant represented each institution However, two participants fromInstitution 2 were chosen because this institution had about two or three times more teachers than the other institutions These teachers all voluntarily participated in the semi-structured interviews.

Table 2 describes the ten teachers who engaged in the interviews As can be seen in Table 2, most teachers (7 out of 10) were females Their ages ranged from 29 to 46, and those aged 30 to 40 accounted for 60% Also, four teachers had taught English at their current institution for 11-15 years By contrast, the three others had worked as teachers of English for about 16-20 years Two teachers had taught English for 6-10 years, and only one teacher had been teaching English for 21-25 years at their current institution Most teachers had an

MA degree, whereas three earned a PhD degree.

Regarding ICT training, only one teacher reported that she had not attended any training programs to use ICT in teaching English Four teachers earned less than ten million dongs per month, and the rest’s average monthly income was from 10 to 20 million dongs Finally, all teachers were from different affiliated members of Windy University except for two from Institution 2, which had much more EFL teachers than the other institutions.

A Summary of Participants’ Information in the Semi-structured Interviews

Teacher Gender Age Teaching experience Education ICT training Income Affiliated

InstitutionsT01 Female 41 16 - 20 yrs MA Yes 10 – 20 mil Ins 1T02 Female 29 06 - 10 yrs MA No Less than 10 mil Ins 2T03 Female 38 11 - 15 yrs PhD Yes 10 – 20 mil Ins 3T04 Female 34 11 - 15 yrs MA Yes Less than 10 mil Ins 4T05 Male 38 11 - 15 yrs MA Yes Less than 10 mil Ins 5T06 Female 46 16 - 20 yrs PhD Yes 10 – 20 mil Ins 6T07 Male 32 06 - 10 yrs MA Yes 10 – 20 mil Ins 2T08 Female 36 11 - 15 yrs MA Yes 10 – 20 mil Ins 7T09 Female 37 16 - 20 yrs MA Yes Less than 10 mil Ins 8T10 Male 42 21 - 25 yrs PhD Yes 10 – 20 mil Ins 9

Data collection instruments

The data-gathering methods employed in this mixed-methods study were:

 A quantitative questionnaire was administered to EFL teachers from

 Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten voluntary teachers from affiliated institutions under Windy University.

Further details of and reasons for selecting each of these data collection instruments are described below.

3.6.1.1 Justifications for the Employment of the Questionnaire

There are several reasons for choosing a questionnaire as a data collection instrument Cohen et al (2018) argued that questionnaires offered the benefits of standardized and open responses to various topics from a large sample or population Other researchers shared similar viewpoints and elaborated on the types of information which could be obtained through questionnaires, including thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, personality, and behavioural intentions, opinions, preferences, demographics, practices and procedures of research participants (Johnson & Christensen, 2008; Mills & Gay, 2018; Teddie & Tashakkori, 2009) These investigators have also suggested that questionnaire research is relevant to descriptive studies, especially educational research Another reason a questionnaire is preferable is its convenience and economy Cohen et al (2018) expressed that the questionnaire could be administered without the researcher's presence and is often comparatively straightforward to analyse In summary, educational researchers measure many characteristics by using questionnaires that can be cheap, reliable, valid, quick and easy to complete.

I decided to employ the questionnaire as the primary data collection instrument for the above benefits of questionnaires and my study aims. Concerning the nature of this study, the study met two aspects; it was conducted in an educational setting, and while it was a mixed-methods study with a correlational element, its nature was descriptive Also, I chose to use a questionnaire to collect data because it can help reduce my influence on the study Thus, the questionnaire maintained my “etic perspective, e.g., maintaining a distance from the native point

81 of view in the interest of achieving more objectivity” (Babbie, 2012, p 310), especially when I was the participants’ colleague.

One of the most important considerations when constructing the questionnaire was the variables In quantitative research, social scientists frequently include gender, age, socioeconomic status, attitudes and behaviours such as racism, social control, political authority, and leadership (Creswell, 2013) For this study, the questionnaire, which was constructed and adapted based on Albirini’s (2006) questionnaire and the past literature, had two major parts: Part A aimed to obtain some demographic information about the participants, and Part B investigated the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English (see Appendix 1).

Part A consisted of seven questions covering teachers’ gender, age, teaching experience, qualifications, ICT training, income, and teaching methods. These types of demographic information have been proven to have a significant correlation with individuals’ attitudes towards the use of ICT (Albirini, 2006; Kubiatko, 2013; Loyd & Gressard, 1986; Peytcheva-Forsyth et al., 2018) The relationship between these variables and teachers’ attitudes has also been discussed in Rogers’ (2003) Diffusion of Innovation.

Part B was subdivided into two (02) sections Section I: Attitude scales - was composed of 20 five-point Likert scale statements to gauge information about the teachers’ cognitive, affective, and behavioural attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English In this section, items from 1 to 6 were used to gauge information about the affective component, items from 7 to 15 were aimed to measure the cognitive component, and the last five items (items 16 – 20) were used to measure the behavioural component These designed items were theoretically guided by Rosenberg and Hovland's (1960) Schematic Conception of Attitudes (1960) and Rogers’ (2003) Model of Five Stages in the Innovation-Decision Process (see Section 2.4) For instance, based on three components of attitudes specified in Rosenberg and Hovland's (1960) Schematic Conception ofAttitudes

(1960), Section I: Attitude scales also included items to gauge information about these components.

Section II has 44 items divided into three sub-sections aiming to collect information about factors affecting their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English Sub-section 2.1 – Teachers’ perceptions of the characteristics or attributes of using ICT in teaching English – comprised 23 five-point Likert items Sub-section 2.2 – Teachers’ perceptions of their levels of ICT competence had 18 four-point Likert items Sub-section 2.3 - Teachers’ perceptions of ICT access consisted of three five-point Likert items Rogers’ (2003) Innovation Diffusion Process has tailored the relationships between these factors and teachers’ attitudes. Adapting the questionnaire involved several stages In the first stage, I used the research literature to develop “the scales” (Creswell, 2013, p 52) that would be measured First, the demography scale was developed from the existing literature on the relationships between different demographic features and teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT Second, the scales of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT and factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English were adapted based mainly on the review of ICT use and wording relevant to Vietnamese culture Some adaptions which had been made were:

1 The replacements of terms: The term “Computer Technology” was replaced by the broader term “Information and Communication Technology (ICT)” The term “computers” in questions 3 and 17 in section 1 and questions

14 and 15 in section 2 were replaced with “ICT application(s)” because the denotation of “computers” in these questions refers to a specific application All the terms “computers” in the other questions were superseded by the term “ICT” because they all generally referred to ICT Besides, to make the questionnaire more suitable for the context of the study, the term “schools” were substituted by

“universities”, and the term “Syrian” in statement 18 in section 2 was replaced by

“Windy University” because the research setting was at a university in Vietnam.Some examples of term replacement are demonstrated in Table 3 below.

Some Examples of Adapted Items

Albirini’s original statements Adapted statements

1 Computers do not scare me at all 1 I am not scared of using ICT.

15 Everyone can easily learn to operate a computer.

15 Everyone can easily learn to operate an ICT application.

19 I have seen some Syrian teachers use computers for educational purposes.

19 I have seen some Windy University teachers use ICT for educational purposes.

2 The addition of statements to the questionnaire: In Albirini’s questionnaire, he omitted one variable, namely trialability, in Part II of the questionnaire because the participants in the context of his study did not have chances or trial periods to try using the computers before using them. Specifically, in his research context, the Syrian Government inaugurated computer-quipped labs within secondary schools for general, vocational and technical education and requested teachers to use them for teaching without allowing teachers to trial the computers However, in the context of Windy University, with the availability of ICT, teachers were free to try any ICT applications of their interest Therefore, I included three statements in Part II, section 2.1, to obtain teachers’ perceived trialability of ICT (statements 21 – 23). Below are the added items.

21 The university leaders do not force me to use ICT if I have not known how to use

22 I will not use ICT in teaching if I do not find it easy to use

23 I will not use ICT in teaching if I do not find it useful

3 The deletion of statements from the questionnaire

Section 3 in Albirini’s questionnaire comprised 16 items to explore teachers’ perceptions of cultural relevance to and impacts on Syrian society and schools However, he argued, “The dearth of studies examining cultural conditions might be attributed to the difficulty involved in capturing this construct.” (p 116) I also found that my background in culture was limited.Therefore, taking Albirini’s argument into careful consideration, my knowledge

85 comparing the scope of the study, I decided to delete this section from the adapted questionnaire.

4 Re-arrangement of questionnaire structure: Compared with Albirini’s questionnaire, I put the questions about demographic information (Part A) before those about teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English.

5 Translation of questionnaire: The adapted survey questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese (see Appendix 2) so that the participants could better understand the questionnaire items and give the most accurate and suitable responses To ensure the quality of the translation, I followed three phases In phase 1, one of my colleagues with specialisation in translation and interpretation and I individually translated the questionnaire into Vietnamese Then the two translated versions were compared to find out if there were any differences We discussed the differences to come to a final agreement In phase 2, I sent the translated questionnaire to my two supervisors for feedback Considering the supervisors’ feedback, I modified and perfected my official questionnaire in the final phase Some examples of translated items are presented in Table 4.

Some Examples of Translated Items

1 I am not scared of using

1 Tôi không cảm thấy sợ hãi việc sử dụng CNTT&TT.

15 Everyone can easily learn to operate an ICT application.

15 Mọi người có thể dễ học cách sử dụng một ứng dụng CNTT&TT.

University teachers use ICT for educational purposes.

19 Tôi đã thấy giảng viên của Đại học Windy sử dụng CNTT&TT phục vụ mục tiêu giảng dạy.

3.6.1.2 Justification for the Selection of the Likert Scale

The Likert scale, developed in 1932 (Likert, 1932), was selected for its aptness and popularity in measuring attitudes, character and personality traits(Boone & Boone, 2012) The original Likert scale was designed with a series of

86 five-response questions, and the alternatives were (1) strongly approve, (2) approve, (3) undecided, (4) disapprove, and (5) strongly disapprove Other variations of the response alternatives are appropriate, including deleting the neutral response (Clason & Dormody, 1994, as cited in Boone & Boone, 2012). Combining the responses from the question series creates an attitudinal measurement scale (Likert, 1932) In the current study, except for Sub-section 2.2

– Teachers’ perceptions of their levels of ICT competence which was a 4-point scale, the other sections were designed based on 5-point scales.

Together with variations of response alternatives, the justifications for the number of rating categories have been of great concern Regarding the 4-point scale, there were two reasons for employing this scale format First, according to Pimentel (2019), some researchers preferred to use a force-number Likert scale with even response categories (e.g., 4,6, 8 or 10) to avoid the in-between scenario of response scale like the three (neutral/undecided) in the five Likert scale He also added that the 4-response scale is the most common in this case, and empirical evidence showed very few differences among the scale formats regarding variation about the mean, skewness or kurtosis According to Cohen et al (2018), choices may be ‘forced’ by deleting specific categories such as

“neither agree nor disagree’ and “undecided” “if the researcher genuinely believes that respondents do, or should, have an opinion.” (p 484).

In my study, the participants were from a tertiary institution, and they had experienced using ICT in their teaching, resulting in the formation of their ICT knowledge and skills As tertiary teachers, they were believed to possess the critical ability to self-assess their ICT knowledge and skills Therefore, a four- point scale was used to avoid the possibility that the participants might automatically choose this alternative without reading the questionnaire items carefully, which might result in invalid answers (Cohen et al., 2018).

On the other hand, arguments about using midpoints and the optimal number of response alternatives have been under much investigation Concerning the 5-point scale, researchers have given several accounts for the employment of

Data collection procedures

The data collection procedures in this study were conducted as follows:

• First, quantitative questionnaires were administered to EFL teachers from Windy University to allow all the teachers to express their opinions and experience.

• Then, qualitative semi-structured interviews with teachers were conducted after they completed the questionnaire and voluntarily agreed to participate in the interviews Further details of each of these data collection processes are described below.

3.7.1 Collecting data from the survey questionnaire

The research followed the explanatory sequential design, so the first data collection phase was collecting data from the survey questionnaire.

Steps 1 Getting consent from the heads of the English departments

To get consent from the heads of the English departments from affiliated member universities to survey their academic institutions and contact information, including full names, email addresses and telephone numbers, I sent emails and

93 phoned them as well The result was a list of 138 English teachers working at Windy University The heads of the English departments all agreed to allow me to survey their staff.

There were several ways to communicate with participants, like telephoning, emailing and mailing, but for convenience, I sent emails to 138 English teachers to invite them to participate in the study In the emails, I explained my study preliminarily and asked for their support by participating in the survey Thanks to my acquaintance with them and our community practice of English teachers at Windy University, I got 98 responses showing they agreed to participate in my study.

Step 3 Getting the confirmation to take part in the study

After initial contact with the participants, I sent the Consent Forms, Plain Language Statement for Questionnaire, and Explanatory Statement to ensure the ethical considerations and confirm their participation I got them back, showing the participants’ confirmations and agreements Although I got only 98 feedbacks in step 2, I sent these documents to 138 English teachers on the list because I expected to get more responses and allow more teachers to express their opinions Moreover, Johnson and Christensen (2014) emphasized, “If you want a sample to be representative of a population, then it is essential that the response rate be as high as possible.” (p 347) They also argued that around 70% and higher response rates were generally acceptable.

After step 3 was done for one week, the questionnaires were administered to participants There were two popular ways to distribute the questionnaire: Paper- based administration and Web-based administration I employed the latter to collect data Specifically, I used the Google Form tool to design an online survey form since it is free and can help collect data quickly The survey was administered for two weeks, from May 20 to June 05, 2021.

Besides, to increase the response rates, I took the following measures. First, I included the incentive offered in the email cover, which informed that any participant who completed the survey was given a voucher to buy telephone cards Singer and Ye (2013) argued that cash incentive was the most effective at increasing response rates However, my study was conducted in an educational context; the cash incentive seems rude and irrelevant Therefore, I chose voucher incentives as the alternative In addition to using the above financial rewards, I followed the steps suggested by Dillman et al (2014), namely:

1 Mailed out and sent out the original questionnaires.

2 About one week after the initial mailing, when the maximum number of returns usually arrived, I sent thank-you reminders to all sample members, whether they had responded.

3 After four days of sending thank-you reminders, I phoned the nonrespondents to remind them to complete the survey.

By the end of the survey, the Google Form system received 112 responses, equal to the response rate of 81.2% This response rate was more significant than the typical response rate for online surveys (44.1%) (Wu et al., 2022) and over the acceptable rate of response (Holtom et al., 2022), and which was “a good response rate cutoff for maintaining representativeness” (Ruel et al., 2016, p. 276) All voluntary teachers to participate in the interviews were noted down for the later interviews.

3.7.2 Collecting data from the semi-structured interviews

After the data collected from the questionnaire had been analysed, which could help identify some areas needing further clarification, explanation or confirmation, I moved to the following process – designing the questionnaire for interviews and conducting semi-structured interviews Collecting data from semi- structured interviews followed several steps:

Step 1 Selecting the participants to take part in the interview

I used the purposive sampling technique, as mentioned in Section 3.5.Creswell (2013) argued, “The idea behind qualitative research is to purposefully

95 select participants or sites (or documents or visual material) that will best help the researcher understand the problem and the research question” (p 189) In this study, I interviewed the participants who agreed to take part in the interviews voluntarily Sixty-four teachers expressed their volunteered to participate in the interviews Therefore, I classified them into ten different group participants Each group had participants from the same affiliated institution Then, based on the set criteria, I selected one representative from each affiliated institution to conduct the interviews However, I chose two participants from the institution specialising in foreign languages because this institution had almost double or triple the number of English teachers compared to the other institutions As a result, the obtained results could be best generalised for the whole of Windy University.

Step 2 Making appointments for interviews

I contacted the respondents to create schedules for interviews via email.

In the emails, I explained the purposes and procedures for conducting the interviews.

As scheduled, I went to the meetings to interview the respondents The procedures of conducting the interviews followed the instructions for interviews. For the convenience of the participants, I decided to run the discussions in relatively quiet places after the office or working hours as they had to teach in the daytime After that, I asked them for their permission to audio-record during the interviews.

Step 4: Getting the confirmation of the transcripts

The interviews’ recordings were transcribed and sent back to the interviewees for verification or modifications (if needed).

Data analysis

Before analyzing quantitative data, the collected data was refined and cleaned, which was done by making the frequency table for three variables,including ages, teaching experience and personal income, to find the outliers -

96 data points far from other data points For example, the age of 70 is not applicable.

Another technique to clean data was the table of combined variables. Specifically, I combined ages and teaching experience For instance, data showed a teacher who was 26 years old, but his/ her teaching experience of ten years was considered an outlier and excluded Finally, I used data filtering to find out if there were any answers in which participants selected one value for all questions. After carrying out these methods, no outliers were detected Though there were some missing values in open questions regarding teaching methods, the data set satisfied the conditions for quantitative analysis.

Quantitative data analysis was conducted in light of the research questions In other words, the quantification of data was used to explore EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in their teaching (first research question) and to investigate the associations between factors affecting their attitudes to employing ICT in their teaching practice The questionnaire data were entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences Software (SPSS) version 25, and all negatively worded items were reverse-coded (Pallant, 2011). The data were then analysed to obtain descriptive statistics (percentages, mean score, and standard deviation) and correlational statistics (Pearson and Spearman’s Rho) Exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) were also conducted to identify correlations among the items and to reduce the number of items, thus making it easier to examine the associations via Pearson, Spearman’s Rho and regression analysis.

The questionnaire findings were analysed with descriptive statistics such as percentages, mean score and standard deviation These were obtained on the teachers’ cognitive, affective and behavioural attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English Descriptive statistics were used to describe and summarize the properties of the mass of data collected from the respondents (Gay & Geoffrey, 2018) Next, Pearson, Spearman’s Rho and Multiple Regression Analysis were calculated to examine the associations between the listed factors that influence teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT and their attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English The quantitative data analysis followed the following sequences (see Table 5).

The List of Quantitative Data Analysis Techniques

No Research questions Analysis techniques

1 What are the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English?

Descriptive Statistics & Principal Component Analysis

Question 2: What are the teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English?

2.1 What are the teachers’ perceptions of their ICT competence levels?

2.2 What are the teachers’ perceptions of

ICT attributes in teaching English?

2.3 What are the teachers’ perceptions of

Principal Axis Analysis & Descriptive Statistics Descriptive Statistics

What are the associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and the factors influencing these attitudes?

Pearson & Spearman Correlations & Regression Analysis

3.8.1.1 Factor Analysis (FA) and Principal Component Analysis

In order to explore the intra-structure of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and their perceptions of five ICT attributes, factor analysis and component analysis were employed Factor analysis (FA) is a multivariate statistical procedure with many uses, such as reducing the number of variables and examining the structure or relationship between variables (Pallant,2011; Williams et al., 2010) According to Pallant (2011), FA comprises “a variety of different but related techniques” and “one of the main distinctions is between what is termed principal components analysis (PCA) and factor analysis(FA).” (Pallant, 2011, p 181) Both PAC and FA have many similarities and often

99 produce similar results They are also often used interchangeably by researchers. However, some differences between the two methods can be noted Specifically, PCA calculates all of the variance in the variables being used In FA, however, only the shared variance is analysed (Pallant, 2011).

According to Howard (2015), EFAs require several statistical and methodological decisions, including (1) the techniques for data inspection, (2) the method for factor analysis, (3) the method for factor retention, (4) the method for factor rotation, and (5) the factor loading cutoff (Howard, 2015) He argued these decisions should be planned before EFA performances and based upon prior theory and methodological logic to avoid an increase in the familywise error rate and risk of committing a Type I or violations of scientific integrity In this study, five decisions were planned as follows:

The method for factor analysis

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was utilized to explore the intra- attitudinal structure of teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English. There were some reasons for choosing PCA First, Principal component analysis is frequently used to express the variance shared among variables in a set; that is, it is used as a factor analysis (Velicer, 1976) Principal components analysis does not discriminate between shared and unique variance (Costello & Osborne, 2005) Furthermore, it is computed without regard to any underlying structure caused by latent variables; components are calculated using all of the variances of the manifest variables, and all of that variance appears in the solution (Ford et al., 1986) As a result, using PCA could yield as much variance as possible.

Principal Axis Analysis (PAF), one kind of Exploratory Factor Analysis(EFAs), was performed to explore the factors of teachers’ perceptions of the characteristics of using ICT in teaching English I made this decision due to some reasons First, Costello and Osborne (2005) state that factor analysis aims “to reveal any latent variables that cause the manifest variables to covary.” (p.2).Secondly, “factors are thought to “cause” variables - the underlying construct(the factor) is what produces scores on the variables Thus, “EFA is associated with

100 theory development” (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013, p 614) Concerning my interest in a theoretical solution uncontaminated by unique and error variability, PAF was theoretically relevant (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007) Another reason is that PAF should yield the same solution (all other things being equal) while also avoiding the inflation of estimates of variance accounted for (Costello & Osborne, 2005) while it gives a more interpretable solution.

Some researchers recommended that the assessment of the suitability of the data should be done for factor analysis (Howard, 2015; Pallant, 2011; Watkins, 2018; Williams et al., 2010) Specifically, the adequacy of the sample size and the strength of the relationship among the variables (or items) were assessed by performing the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy (Kaiser, 1970, 1974) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (Bartlett, 1954), respectively Bartlett’s test of sphericity should be significant (p < 05) for the factor analysis to be considered appropriate The KMO index ranges from 0 to 1, with 6 suggested as the minimum value for a good factor analysis (Tabachnick

The method for factor retention

Retaining the fewest possible factors while explaining the most variance of the observed variables is the ultimate aim of EFA/ PCA Hence, the correct number of factors must be extracted because this decision will directly influence results (Henson & Roberts, 2006) According to Williams et al (2010), there are several criteria available to researchers to extract data and determine the number of retained factors, including Kaiser’s criteria (eigenvalue-greater-than-one rule) (Kaiser, 1960), the Scree test (Cattell, 1966), the cumulative percent of variance extracted, and parallel analysis (Horn, 1965).

Arguments on these criteria have been long-standing and seem not to end due to certain limitations pertaining to each (Cattell, 1966; Henson & Roberts,2006; Velicer, 1976) For example, the fixed thresholds of the cumulative percentage of variance extracted vary across the disciplines (the natural sciences,psychology, and the humanities) Therefore, multiple approaches should be used

101 in factor extraction (Williams et al., 2010) In this study, Kaiser’s criteria with the eigenvalue-greater-than-one rule and the proportion of cumulative percentage of the variance of at least 50% were employed, followed by the scree test and parallel analysis (Hair et al., 2018; Williams et al., 2010).

The method for factor rotation

In EFA, orthogonal rotation and oblique rotation are two common rotation techniques (Williams et al., 2010) Attempts have been made to compare and distinguish these two methods (Costello & Osborne, 2005; Henson & Roberts, 2006; Izquierdo et al., 2014; Williams et al., 2010) These authors pointed out that orthogonal rotations produce uncorrelated, while oblique methods allow the factors to correlate Costello and Osborne (2005) recommended that oblique rotation be used since it has nearly identical results to the orthogonal rotation when using the same extraction method Several methods to choose from both rotation options are orthogonal varimax/quartimax or oblique olbimin/promax (Williams et al., 2010) These scholars also pointed out that orthogonal varimax rotation, which was first developed However, oblique rotation is often seen as producing more accurate results for research involving human behaviours or when data does not meet priori assumptions.

Research Quality

This section depicts the trustworthiness of quantitative and qualitative research intending to validate the quality of the study It is necessary to ensure the trustworthiness of quantitative research measured in terms of validity and reliability (Cohen et al., 2018) Reliability refers to the consistency degree that an instrument or data-gathering procedure exhibits In contrast, validity is understood as the quality of a data collection instrument or procedure that allows the inquiry to measure what it aims to measure (Best & Kahn, 2014) In this study, the reliability of the questionnaire was checked through the alpha coefficients with the internal consistency ranging from 67 to 87 Additionally, modifications of the original questionnaire and forward and backward translations were conducted to ensure its content validity On the other hand, the reliability was achieved by comparing coding among several coders. Furthermore, the level of inter-coder agreement for interview data was calculated at 0.87 and that of the intra-coder agreement was 0.90.

Credibility is defined as the accuracy of describing the phenomenon a study aims to describe; therefore, credibility is fairly similar to internal validity (Shenton, 2004) This study employed several techniques, such as triangulation, member checking, peer debriefing and peer examination These techniques enabled the researcher to accurately record the phenomenon under research or reduce the risk of misinterpretation The strategies used to establish trustworthiness are elaborately explained below.

Triangulation was an effective method in the current study to ensure its credibility Triangulation concerns utilising different data sources to foster the

119 inquiry's rigour (Maxwell, 2013) It is considered an effective strategy to validate elements of a qualitative study as it helps compensate for the limitations of the particular data collection methods It also helps to mitigate the effects of possible researcher bias on the analysis and interpretation of qualitative data (Denzin & Lincoln, 2013).

In this study, triangulation was obtained in three ways: data triangulation, methodological triangulation and time triangulation Particularly, data was captured from a significant number of participants Specifically, participants were

112 teachers of English at several affiliated tertiary institutions of Windy University (data triangulation) The data were also collected by questionnaires and interviews (method triangulation) and over 18 months (time triangulation).

According to Creswell and Clark (2018), member-checking is a frequently used strategy in which the researcher takes summaries of the findings “back to key participants in the study and asks them whether the findings are an accurate reflection of their experiences” (p 266) This is what Clandinin and Connelly (2000) referred to as “back and forthing” (p 138) Through these strategies, the data's accuracy and completeness can be maximized by employing audio recordings, transcription, translation, and analysis In the current research study, after the interviews were conducted in Stage 2, the participants provided feedback on transcriptions regarding the “truth” of the story They commented on whether I had successfully captured and shared their voices.

Peer debriefing, which involves qualified peer researchers “to review and assess transcripts, emerging and final categories from those transcripts, and the final themes or findings of a given study” (Janesick, 2015, p 1), was also conducted concurrently with member-examining further to assess the credibility of findings in the current study This method was employed during the data analysis process when all the interpretations and results from the semi-structured interviews were analysed and discussed with the experts in EFL Additionally,

120 after the interviewed participants’ audio recordings were transcribed verbatim, the translated transcripts were checked by two EFL experts and the researcher.

Peer examination was conducted while developing codes and sub-codes to analyse the interview data Transcripts of the interviews were sent to two experts in EFL who were invited to code themes along with the researcher to reduce any researcher’s bias in their interpretation Any disagreements were carefully analysed, discussed, and led to a revision of the initial codes (Dửrnyei, 2007) and thus helped to maximize the validity of the interpretation.

Transferability relates to the extent to which the results from a study can be transferred to other settings Transferability is highlighted by giving a full description to permit readers to determine how closely their situations converge and whether or not the results of this study can be applied to their context In addition, diversity and generalisability are produced using a multi-site design and the difference in the conveniently selected samples.

The extent to which the data interpretation is reliable and congruent is called dependability This term concerns the significance of openness to changes occurring during the inquiry process In the current study, some changes were initiated regarding sample sizes For the questionnaire, data was captured from most teachers teaching English at Windy University However, as this could generate far more data than feasible for a study in the semi-structured interviews, it was necessary to reduce the number of teachers interviewed to only ten.

Confirmability refers to the extent to which research findings can be confirmed or corroborated by others rather than the only researcher This issue was resolved by providing clear, detailed information on how to gather data, how to code data, and how to make decisions throughout the research Examples of data

121 analysis and coding were demonstrated in the text, and interpretations were exhibited with extensive quotations from the data.

Ethical Considerations

Ethics, in the context of academic research, are defined as the appropriateness of the researcher’s behaviour, the rights of participants of the study, and how they might be influenced (Saunders et al., 2007) Some measures were carried out to ensure there were no potential harm or risks to the participants, including making participation voluntary, ensuring their right to withdraw, gaining informed consent, and maintaining anonymity and confidentiality of the information obtained (Creswell, 2013; Mertens, 2015; Cohen et al., 2018).

To begin with, I ensured that participation in this study was voluntary and that participants could withdraw at any stage of the study The Explanatory Statement (see Appendix 5), the Plain Language Statement accompanied by the questionnaire, and the interview reiterated that this was the case Additionally, transcripts of the interviews were sent for member checks (Mertens, 2015) All participants gave informed consent The questionnaire package contained a Plain Language Statement (See Appendix 6) and a soft copy of the questionnaire instrument The Plain Language Statement was given to participants who chose to participate further in this study via interview, and consent forms were signed.

To maintain anonymity, no names were recorded on the questionnaires. While some demographic data were obtained, identifying individuals was highly unlikely To protect the participants’ identities in the semi-structured interviews, pseudonyms for the EFL teachers, such as T01, T02, T03 and T04, were used In handling the data collected, the questionnaire responses and interview transcripts were kept in a secure place and retained for at least five years All electronic files will be stored in a password-protected computer and trashed out in five years.

This chapter has presented and discussed the methodological issues in terms of the philosophical paradigm adopted in this study to select a research methodology appropriate to the research aim; the mix-methods approach;

123 research context; participants and sampling; data collection instruments; data collection procedure; the researcher’s roles; methods of data analysis; quality of the study; and ethical consideration The results of the data analysis are reported in the next chapter.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A summary of the main findings of the research study

The current research study explored tertiary EFL teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English It also aimed to investigate the associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and the factors influencing these attitudes The following main results were obtained and answered three stated research questions.

Concerning research question 1: “What are the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English?”, the quantitative analysis indicated that the EFL tertiary teachers held positive attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English, evident within three components of attitudes (M = 4.1, SD =

0.4) Specifically, their attitudes were the most positive and most robust exhibited in the behavioural component (M = 4.2, SD = 0.4), while their attitudes were indicated at equal levels in cognitive and affective components with the mean scores of 4.0 and the standard deviations of 0.4 and 0.7, respectively The qualitative findings, which confirmed and provided insights into teachers’ attitudes, were grouped into the following three main themes and seven sub- themes Theme 1 - Behavioural component of teachers’ attitudes - included three sub-themes: 1) High evaluation of the

125 efficiency of getting information; 2) Willingness and activeness in making the best use of ICT in teaching; and 3) Voluntariness and flexibility in using ICT. Theme 2 - Cognitive component of teachers’ attitudes – comprised of four sub- themes: 1) Time and effort saving; 2) Enhancement of students’ learning; 3) Felt needs to use ICT in teaching English; and 4) Concerns related to using ICT. Theme 3 - Affective component of teachers’ attitudes indicated respondents’ favourable feelings about using ICT in their teaching practice.

Regarding research question 2: “What are the teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English?”, teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English, the quantitative results indicated that participants were generally moderately competent in using ICT, exhibited positive perceptions of ICT attributes in teaching English, and had adequate ICT access.

Regarding teachers’ perceptions of their levels of ICT competence, two recurrent themes in the interviews were a sense amongst interviewees that they were competent in using popular basic ICT applications (Theme 1) and were sceptical about operating complicated tasks effectively (Theme 2) Regarding teachers’ perceptions of the attributes of ICT in teaching English, the four themes:

1) the relative advantage, 2) the compatibility, 3) the complexity, and 4) trialability and observability recurred throughout the dataset The relative advantage and compatibility attributes were dominant in teachers’ semi- structured interviews and consistent with the questionnaire’s findings However, trialability found in the questionnaire results did not emerge as a theme in the qualitative analysis Concerning teachers’ perceptions of their levels of ICT access, there was a sense of availability of ICT access amongst interviewees. Specifically, teachers claimed daily access to ICT facilities in and out of their campuses.

Regarding research question 3: “What are the associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and the factors influencing these attitudes?”, the quantitative results indicated that teachers’

126 attitudes were significantly affected by only three factors: teachers’ perceptions of

127 the attributes of ICT in teaching English, their perceived levels of ICT competence, and their teaching methods Specifically, teachers’ perceptions of their levels of ICT competence were the most influential factor, followed by their teaching methods and perceptions of the ICT attributes in English teaching. Besides, although there were some differences in quantitative and qualitative results, it can be concluded that in the current research setting, there was no association between teachers’ attitudes and their perceptions of their levels of ICT access Concerning the associations between teachers’ attitudes and teachers’ characteristics, although the minor diverse responses from the teachers, in general, it can postulate that there were no relationships between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and teachers’ characteristics except for their experiences in participation in ICT training programmes.Furthermore, the findings showed that teachers’ attitudes could be predicted by their perceptions of their ICT competence levels and teaching methods However,the small portion of variance could be explained by these two variables (26.8%),suggesting that this was not a good model to predict the teachers’ attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English The results showed that other potential but unexamined factors, such as leaner-related factors, communication channels and policies, could be added to the model to increase the total proportion of variance The following sections detail the findings.

Teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English

This section reports on the participant’s attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English in response to Research question 1: What are the teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English? First, quantitative analysis, including PCA and descriptive statistics for the mean and standard deviation of the data obtained from the self-reported attitude scale, was conducted to answer this research question Then, the qualitative analysis was done to explain the quantitative results further or provide in-depth insights into respondents’ attitudes.

Factor analysis (FA) is a multivariate statistical procedure with many uses, such as reducing the number of variables and examining the structure or relationship between variables (Pallant, 2011; Williams et al., 2010) To explore the factorial structure of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English, 20 items of the instrument were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) with oblique rotation (Oblimin) and the factor loading of at least 30 Before performing PCA, the suitability of data for analysis was assessed. Inspection of the correlation matrix revealed the presence of 14 coefficients of 0.3 and above (See Table 11).

The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was 0.831, exceeding the recommended value of 0.6 (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013); Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity indicated statistical significance (Pallant, 2011) (see Table 10) These findings supported the factorability of the correlation matrix.

Results of the KMO and Barlett’s Test for PCA

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy .831

Principal components analysis (PCA) revealed the presence of four components with eigenvalues exceeding 1, explaining 32.33%, 8.68%, 7.80% and 5.92% of the variance, respectively (see Table 12) Before accepting the factors, additional criteria were used, such as the Scree plot and parallel analysis(Williams et al., 2010) The Scree plot is a graph of eigenvalues Retaining components lying to the left of the elbow is recommended, which is a break from linearity (Williams et al., 2010) Inspecting the Scree plot (Figure 7) revealed a clear break after the third component.

The Correlation Matrix of Participants’ Attitudes Towards the Use of ICT in Teaching English

AC1 AC2 AC3 AC4 AC5 AC6 CC1 CC2 CC3 CC4 CC5 CC6 CC7 CC8 CC9 BC1 BC2 BC3 BC4 BC5

Notes: AC = Affective Component, CC = Cognitive Component, BC = Behavioural Component

Total Variance in TATT Explained

Initial Eigenvalues Extraction Sums of Squared Rotation

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. a When components are correlated, sums of squared loadings cannot be added to obtain a total variance.

Scree Plot of Initial Factor Extraction for TATT

The findings from the Scree plot were further supported by the results of parallel analysis, which showed only three components with eigenvalues exceeding the corresponding criterion values for the randomly generated data matrix of the same size (20 variables x 112 respondents) Table 13 shows the results of the parallel analysis.

Eigenvalues from PCA versus parallel analysis values for PCA

Criterion value from parallel analysis Decision

According to Hinkin (1998), a parsimonious and simple structure is desired for the scales, and researchers should retain only those items that substantially load on a single appropriate factor Therefore, the items that were low-loading, cross- loading or freestanding were dropped out, and some furtherPCA tests were performed after each item removal Finally, 13 items were retained and loaded on three factors representing three attitudinal components and forming three subscales: affective subscale (three items), cognitive subscale (five items) and behavioural subscale (five items) One item (item 12) was initially supposed to load on the cognitive subscale but loaded on the behavioural subscale When examining the construct this item measured, it was found that it expressed the teachers’ experience using ICT (behaviour) Therefore, item 12 was decided to constitute the behavioural subscale The alpha coefficients for the retained items were over 0.7, which suggested acceptable internal consistency among the items(see Table 14).

Results from a Factor Analysis of TATT

17 If I had the money, I would buy an ICT application .80 74

19 I would like to learn more about ICT .75 74

20 I have the intention to use ICT in the near future .72 72

18 I would use ICT as much as possible .63 73

12 ICT is a fast and efficient means of getting information.

8 My university would be a better place with ICT .74 73

14 ICT can enhance students’ learning .70 73

7 ICT saves time and effort .70 73

13 I think I would need ICT in my classroom .61 73

9 Students must use ICT in all subject matters .42 76

2 I feel comfortable when using ICT .77 72

1 I am not scared of using ICT .72 78

4 I like talking with others about ICT .70 73

Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis

Rotation Method: Oblimin with Kaiser

Normalization. a Rotation converged in 7 iterations.

The final three-component solution explained 52.68% of the variance, with Component 1 contributing 31.07%, Component 2: 10.91%, and Component

3 contributing 10.70% The interpretation of the three components was consistent with studies on components of teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English Oblimin rotation aided in the interpretation of these three components The rotated solution revealed the presence of a simple structure with three components, demonstrating several strong loadings and most variables loading substantially on two components Data from 13 retained items were analysed descriptively to reveal teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in their teaching Table 15 illustrates the distribution of mean scores on teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English.

As shown in Table 15, the participants expressed their positive or highly positive attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English, indicated by the mean score of over 4.0 for most items Especially, they strongly agreed with five items depicting their intentions to use ICT in the near future (M = 4.3, SD = 0.5), ICT’s efficiency of getting information (M = 4.5, SD = 0.6), and ICT’s benefits of time and effort savings (M = 4.3, SD = 0.8), teachers’ belief about the need for ICT in classrooms (M = 4.4, SD = 0.6), and teachers’ comfortable feeling when using ICT (M = 4.3, SD = 0.7) Also, the respondents had firm intentions of using ICT when they were positive about purchasing an ICT application if they had money (M = 4.0, SD = 0.6), and highly positive about learning more about ICT (M =

4.2, SD = 0.5) and using ICT as much as possible (M = 4.2, SD = 0.6).

Participants believed that ICT would better their university and enhance students’ learning However, teachers expressed neutral attitudes towards the compulsory use of ICT in all subject matters (M = 3.2, SD = 0.8) On the other hand, the participants were optimistic that they were not scared of using ICT (M = 3.7, SD

= 1.3) and liked talking about it with others (M = 4.0, SD = 0.7).

Distribution of Mean Scores on TATT Towards the Use of ICT in Teaching English

17 If I had the money, I would buy an ICT application 4.0 0.6

19 I would like to learn more about ICT 4.2 0.5

20 I have the intention to use ICT in the near future 4.3 0.5

18 I would use ICT as much as possible 4.2 0.6

12 ICT is a fast and efficient means of getting information 4.5 0.6

8 My university would be a better place with ICT 4.1 0.7

14 ICT can enhance students’ learning 4.2 0.6

7 ICT saves time and effort 4.3 0.8

13 I think I would need ICT in my classroom 4.4 0.6

9 Students must use ICT in all subject matters 3.2 0.8

2 I feel comfortable when using ICT 4.3 0.7

1 I am not scared of using ICT 3.7 1.3

4 I like talking with others about ICT 4.0 0.7

TATT Towards the Use of ICT in Teaching English

Table 16 presents participants’ intra-structural attitudinal components and overall attitudes towards using ICT in teaching As the table shows, participants’ general attitudes towards using ICT in teaching English were positive (M = 4.1,

SD = 0.4) The respondents’ positive attitudes were evident within the cognitive

(M=4.0, SD = 0.4), affective (M=4.0, SD = 0.7), and behavioural (M=4.2, SD =

4.2.2 Results from the Semi-structured Interviews

The thematic analysis (see Section 3.8.2) was conducted The qualitative results from the thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews were systematically put into different themes and sub-themes The excerpts presented in this section represent participants’ most prominent responses and are interpreted to provide in-depth insights into the quantitative findings.

Theme 1: Behavioural component of teachers’ attitudes

The quantitative findings showed that teachers exhibited highly positive attitudes towards using ICT in terms of their desire and intention to use ICT, to learn about ICT, to buy ICT applications and their high evaluation of the efficiency and convenience of using ICT Findings from qualitative results supported these findings The following themes and sub-themes identified during the analysis could account for teachers’ positive attitudes.

Sub-theme 1: High evaluation of the efficiency of getting information

All participants reported that using ICT to obtain information was fast and efficient Two extracts from the teachers’ responses are provided to illustrate this. Nowadays, students don’t have to go to the library to read printed materials. Still, they can stay at home and access the internet, visit the pages of extensive libraries, or use software or sites where people share learning materials It is very convenient for students to download documents and then read documents online anytime, anywhere, anywhere (T01)

In their study process, students today are exposed to many online learning resources; they don’t have to go directly to the libraries to get books or reference materials Instead, they can go to online libraries to download these materials (T02)

The two responses advocated that teachers highly recognised the effectiveness of using ICT in facilitating the learning process thanks to convenient access to learning materials As noted in the attitudinal structure obtained from PCA, this recognition of the ICT efficiency expressed their perceived practical experience in using ICT in their life and teaching practices. Therefore, it is more related to the behavioural component of attitudes Teachers’ high appreciation for the benefits of obtaining information also confirmed their favour for ICT use as an attitudinal object.

Sub-theme 2: Willingness and activeness in making the best use of ICT in teaching

Teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing their attitudes towards the use

This section focuses on the teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of information and communication technology in teaching English in addressing Research question 2: What are the teachers’ perceptions of factors influencing their attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English? To address this research question, the reports on three influencing factors, including participants’ perceptions of their perceived levels of ICT competence, ICT attributes in teaching English, and ICT access levels, were quantitatively and qualitatively reported.

4.3.1 Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Levels of ICT Competence

This section describes teachers’ perceptions of their levels of ICT competence to answer the sub-research question 2.1: What are the teachers’ perceptions of their ICT competence levels?

Participants were asked to respond to 18 statements regarding their levels of competence in performing certain ICT procedures Table 17 shows the mean scores for teachers’ responses to the 18-item ICT competence scale showing their levels of ICT knowledge and skills in using ICT in teaching English Verbal interpretation for the scale range of the 4-point Likert scale was used to determine the level of teachers’ perceived ICT competence, where 3.28-4 (Much competence), 2.52-3.27 (Moderate competence), 1.76-2.51 (Little competence), and 1.0-1.75 (No competence) (Pimentel, 2019).

As can be seen from Table 17, teachers’ ICT competence varied from little competence to much competence in their specific ICT knowledge and skills Specifically, they were moderately or much competent in basic technical and application skills By contrast, teachers perceived themselves as incompetent users of higher-order processing skills Teachers were much competent in using the Internet for communication They were moderately competent in using hardware products, including printers and computer keyboards (M = 3.0, SD

= 0.7), and using a word processing program (M = 3.1, SD = 0.7) and a presentation program (M = 3.0, SD = 0.7) Besides, teachers were moderately competent in creating and organizing files and folders (M = 3.1,

SD = 0.7) Data from Table 17 also indicated that teachers possessed moderate ICT competence in using the Internet to access di erentfferent types of information (M

= 3.2, SD = 0.8), and in using social networks for educational purposes (M

Distribution of Mean Scores on Participants’ ICT Competence

3 Install new software on a computer 2.5 0.8

4 Operate a word processing program (e.g., Word) 3.1 0.7

9 Use ICT applications for grade keeping 2.5 0.9

11 Create and organise computer files and folders 3.1 0.7

12 Solve simple problems in operating ICT applications.

14 Use the Internet for communication (e.g., email & chatroom).

15 Use the World Wide Web to access di erent types offferent information.

16 Use a learning management system (e.g., Google

17 Use ICT applications to create games (e.g., Quizizz and Kahoot).

18 Use a social network for educational purposes (e.g.,

However, respondents reported that they were not competent in operating database management programs (M = 1.4, SD = 0.8) or graphic programs (M = 1.4, SD = 0.7) Regarding the other ICT knowledge and skills including installing new software, operating a spreadsheet program, using ICT applications for grade keeping, evaluating educational software, solving simple problems in operating ICT applications, removing computer viruses, using a learning management system, and using ICT applications to create games, teachers reported that they were little competent as illustrated by the mean scores ranging from 2.0 to 2.5 and the standard deviations ranging from 0.8 to 0.9.

On average, the respondents reported they had moderate competence in using ICT The overall mean score of teachers’ responses on the ICT competence scale was 2.6, with a standard deviation of 0.6 (see Table 18).

Distribution of Mean Scores on the ICT Competence Scale

Scale: 1 = No competence 2 = Little competence 3 = Moderate competence

4.3.1.2 Results from the Semi-structured Interviews

Teachers participating in the semi-structured interviews were asked to provide their opinions about the survey results on teachers’ perceived levels of ICT competence in teaching English Results from the semi-structured interviews indicated that teachers’ responses could be divided into two main themes First, teachers were competent in using popular basic ICT applications for teaching English Second, teachers’ capability to operate complicated tasks effectively was scepticism.

Theme 1: Competence in using popular basic ICT applications

All teachers agreed on this result and provided relevant justifications for their agreement When asked to share their current ICT practices in teaching

English, all teachers reported using either generic hardware like projectors, laptops, speakers, and microphones or basic software such as a word processor or Powerpoint to compile materials or deliver their lessons Besides, teachers adopted web-based applications such as Quizziz, Kahoot and Google Forms to create games or online tests Finally, they used mobiles, social networks, emails or video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Meet to communicate with students, give real-time online lessons or send materials to students In addition to such generic software and hardware, teachers reported they used the Internet and search engines to seek, download and store information and materials As commented by teacher 07, teachers were undoubtedly very competent He stated, “I think that ICT competence has to be divided into multiple layers For example, using simple software or websites to find information, edit documents or present something, maybe everyone is competent at 100 per cent, even these skills are basic now.” (T07) The following excerpts uncovered the reasons supporting teachers’ perceived level of their ICT competence.

Teachers are all trained Any lecturer must know certain IT requirements. For example, teachers at our university must have IC3 certificates, demonstrating that they are equipped with basic informatics and office computing Furthermore, due to the development of the digital era, teachers are forced to improve their ICT expertise.” (T03).

As an English teacher, one advantage is that I have the English language.

So, when I can access software or technology devices, most instructions are written in English Sometimes if I don’t fully understand the features of a certain device or piece of software, the instructions, which are also the most concise, help me understand its function or effects (T01).

Theme 2: Scepticism about operating complicated tasks effectively

Contrary to agreeing on teachers’ basic skills, interviewed teachers questioned the levels of teachers in handling complicated ICT knowledge and skills Their sceptical opinions were related to using a comprehensive technological platform Teachers might not be competent in using an LMS to teach English effectively Teacher 07 raised his scepticism:

At deeper levels, such as how to use Google Classroom or Edmodo platform and apply them properly in a specific context, it’s not certain that everyone knows Or using Storytelling or foreign language applications, it’s not sure everyone knows how to use them or how to integrate them into teaching is not easy (T07)

In line with teacher 07, teacher 03 advised, “If it’s a programming skill, it’s too difficult for teachers, so teachers sometimes need to spend a lot of time.”

(T03) The success of using an LMS and doing programming requires high levels of thinking or requires the users to possess integrated skills ranging from organisational skills, evaluation skills, and skills for identifying and solving problems to creative skills Hence, it was unsurprising that English teachers perceived they were little competent This qualitative finding, therefore, not only ascertained the quantitative results but also pointed out the weaknesses in teachers’ ICT competence.

To sum up, qualitative results were consistent with the quantitative ones, and the qualitative results from semi-structured interviews provided more comprehensive insights into teachers’ levels of ICT competence in teaching English.

The findings of this study demonstrated that Vietnamese EFL teachers had moderate ICT competence levels, which is inconsistent with Albirini’s (2004) study, which reported that teachers had little competence in using computers.These contradictory findings might be attributed to the differences in teachers’ pedagogical settings or the prevalence of ICT facilities these days compared to when Albirini conducted his study This study’s finding also does not accord with the earlier observation, which showed that Iranian high school EFL teachers were not sufficiently competent to make use of technology in their classes(Jahanban- Isfahlan et al., 2017).

However, the findings support Malinina's (2015) argument that foreign language teachers have above the basic or intermediate levels of knowledge of ICT applications The current study pointed out that teachers were competent in specific skills, similar to the finding reported by Fuente and Biủas (2020), who found that Filipino teachers’ ICT competence in different skill-set (e.g., ICT basics, word processing, and presentation) was intermediate.

The associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in

This section reports the associations between teachers’ attitudes and the influencing factors to answer research question 3: What are the associations between teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and the factors influencing these attitudes? First, the summary of the participants’ characteristics and their teaching methods are reported Then, the associations between participants’ attitudes towards the use of ICT in teaching English and three influencing factors (teachers’ perceptions of their ICT competence levels, their perceptions of the ICT attributes in teaching English and their perceptions of the ICT access levels) and teachers’ characteristics were reported Quantitative analyses, including correlation analysis and regression analysis, were conducted.

Then, the qualitative analysis was done to explain the quantitative results further or provide in-depth insights into these associations.

The participants were 112 English teachers from Windy University A summary of teachers’ characteristics is presented in Table 27 (see Table 27) As shown in Table 27, most were females (88.4%; n = 99) and the rest were males (11.6%; n = 13) The number of teachers aged 30 to 39 was highest (67.0 %; nu) while the figure for the teachers aged between 20 and 29 was lowest (just 3.6%; n=4) 29.5% (n3) of the teachers aged from 40 to 49.

Regarding the highest educational level, the teachers possessing doctoral titles constituted 19.6% (n") while the number of master’s degree holders was more than fourfold, 80.4 % (n) None of them had bachelor’s degrees. Regarding the English teaching experience at their current academic institutions, 34.8% of participants (n9) had 6 – 10 years of teaching, and 42.9% of them (nH) had been teaching for 11 – 15 years 16.1% of the teachers (n) had 16-

20 years of teaching experience, and the rest had a very long-time experience teaching (21 – 25 years) These figures reflected that most participants experienced teaching English at their current institutions, while novice teachers accounted for a small proportion.

Concerning ICT training, most teachers (88.4%; n) had attended ICT training programmes (workshops/ seminars/ courses) while the others had not.Regarding the teacher’s monthly income, up to 98 out of 112 participants(87.5%) replied that they had an average income of 10 million or less At this income, teachers were supposed to have enough financial capacity for their basic needs (food, clothes, children upbringing and basic entertainment, etc.) in an urban area like Windy city Only 12.5% of the teachers had an average income of more than 10 million; they might allocate certain portions for other investments.None of them had an income of over 20 million.

A Summary of Participants’ Demographic Characteristics

Table 28 illustrates the frequency of teachers’ six teaching methods As depicted in Table 28 that hands-on learning and computer-assisted instruction were the two most frequently used by teachers, with mean scores of 4.1 and 4.3, respectively By contrast, project-based learning was least frequently used by teachers (M = 3.0, SD = 1.0) Active discussion, Collaborative activities, Demonstration, and Lecturing were often used by teachers, with the mean scores ranging from 3.8 to 4.0 and standard deviations ranging from 59 to 1.00

Regarding the other teaching methods and the frequency of use reported by participants, few responded that they used some methods, such as flipped learning, portfolios or group presentation These teaching methods, in essence, could be put into seven noted teaching methods For instance, flipped learning could be regarded as computer-assisted instruction In addition, the number of other teaching methods was minimal Therefore, these teaching methods were not taken into account for data analysis.

The Distribution of Mean Scores for Teaching Methods

Given the nature of the data and the analysis of teachers’ demographic characteristics, the Pearson correlation was employed to examine the relationships

CONCLUSION