Obstacles to technology use when addressing Saudi primary students' mathematics difficulties.

Abstract

Despite the potential positive effects of using technology with students who have difficulties in mathematics in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the great efforts made by the Saudi Government to improve the education system of the nation, which has included a continuous rise in the educational budget, there still remain some obstacles for some teachers when using technology, and while some of these teachers overcome these barriers, others do not succeed in this the challenge. This paper will investigate the barriers that teachers face when using technology in their classroom in primary schools, and why some overcame obstacles while others did not. Semi-structured interviews and observations were used in this research, which were undertaken with three mathematics teachers from school A which used technology, and the other three from school B, which did not use technology. We found that the major obstacle teachers face when using technology included the teachers’ negative attitudes and beliefs about teaching mathematics using technology, the lack of training in using technology, and the lack of technical support. The head teacher’s attitude also had a great effect on managing the challenges teachers faced, which affected teachers’ decisions to use or not use technology in school.