Challenges of Using ICTs in Teaching and Learning of Clothing and Textiles in The Colleges of Education in Ghana

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to identify the challenges that tutors and student teachers at Colleges of Education encounter in using ICTs in learning and teaching of clothing and textiles. The current study employed concurrent triangulation research design under mixed method approach for the study. The study used QUANT + qual because the researcher seeks to supplement the quantitative data with the qualitative data to get in-depth understanding of the challenges in the integration of ICTs in the teaching and learning of clothing and textiles. The population of the study consisted of two hundred and thirty (230) of level 200 and level 300 student teachers offering clothing and textile and all 8 tutors teaching clothing and textiles in the four selected Colleges of Education in the CENTWEST zone of Ghana. In the qualitative phase, simple random sampling was used to select four (4) student teachers from each of the four colleges whiles purposive sampling was used to select all the teachers teaching clothing and textiles in the four colleges of education in the CENTWEST zone of Ghana. This make a total sample of students’ teachers to be sixteen (16) and the eight teachers for the qualitative phase. Data for the study were gathered using a questionnaire and semi-structured interview instruments. Utilizing descriptive statistics like means and standard deviations, coefficient of variations, and thematic analysis to analyse the quantitative data. The results indicated that there are a few challenges that student teachers and tutors encounter on using ICTs for Learning Clothing and Textiles which include: insufficient number of computers, insufficient internet access, lack of software for teaching clothing and textiles, Absence of CAD to design curves in 2D/3D as well as absence of system for monitoring and evaluating ICTs enhancement in the colleges.