An Instrument for Testing Preschool Teachers ‘Attitudes Towards the Use of Computers

Abstract

This paper presents an attempt of creating an instrument for testing the attitudes of preschool teachers towards the use of computers. Although there is no generally accepted definition of what an attitude towards computers is, we wanted to create an instrument with items grouped around the cognitive, affective and behavioural domains. The sample of respondents included the students of the Faculty of Education. There were a total of 167 teachers, of which 123 were regular fourth-year students and 44 of them students in the additional training programme also attending fourth-year studies. It is clear that the use of computers is not a necessary precondition to make preschool teachers’ work with children aged three to six successful. However, it is certain that the use of modern information technologies could contribute to the quality of work. Presenting the objects, beings or phenomena, which cannot be achieved through immediate up-close observation due to speed, distance or size, can be done in an interesting by means of computer use. And this approach can make children's work in the kindergarten much more interesting. We developed an attitudes scale and evaluated some of its empirical features with respect to reliability and factor structure.