Motivation and Personality Traits of TESL Postgraduate Students towards the Use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Second Language Teaching

Abstract

Nowadays technology has practically changed every aspect of language teaching. There are numerous studies focusing on the personality traits of students or other internet users towards the internet utilization. Nonetheless, little research has examined the personality traits of teachers towards using computers for educational purposes especially in the Malaysian context. The purpose of this study was to investigate the motivation and personality traits of TESL postgraduate students in Malaysia towards information and communications technology (ICT) usage in second language teaching. In addition, the relationships between the independent variables (motivation, and personality traits) and the dependent variable (ICT usage) were explored. Then a descriptive-correlational research was employed. A questionnaire survey was developed, reviewed by a panel of experts and its validity and reliability were verified through a pilot study. For the survey, 89 TESL postgraduate students were randomly selected. Moreover, follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted to strengthen the questionnaire survey results. The results indicated that English teachers have high levels of ICT utilization in the general software applications such as Internet, E-mail, presentation, word processing and office work and low levels of ICT usage for specialized software applications such as authoring, graphics and simulations. The results also showed that the participating teachers were highly motivated in teaching language with computers. Furthermore, the results related to the participants' personality traits indicated that they were highly extrovert, agreeable, conscientious, open and moderately neurotic towards ICT usage. The findings of correlation analysis proved that the surveyed teachers' motivation received a slightly moderate and positive relationship with ICT usage. Additionally, the findings of the Pearson correlation coefficient for the relationship between teachers' personality traits and ICT usage showed that generally no correlation exist between the overall personality and ICT usage. In particular the findings showed that only extroverts had a slightly moderate and positive correlation with ICT usage. The interviews responses also verified the questionnaire results. The research results suggest that to develop ICT integration in the educational processes, teacher training computer skills and increasing the computer facilities at schools are required. Finally, implications, and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Understanding the Effect of Demographic and Personality Traits on the E-Filing Continuance Usage Intention in Malaysia

“…Thus, H2b is not supported. This is in line with a previous local study which found a non-significant impact of conscientiousness towards postgraduate students’ use of ICT (Hassanzadeh et al, 2012). Furthermore, Landers and Lounsbury (2006) also reveal that individuals with lower conscientiousness have a higher Internet usage compared to those with high conscientiousness.…”

“…However, if the technology provides ability to improve their social status or opportunities for interpersonal interaction, then they will magnify those beliefs and increase the usage of technology (Lin and Ong, 2010). Recent studies have also found that extraversion has a positive relationship with ICT usage whereby the more extravert individuals have a more positive attitude to use computers (Hassanzadeh et al, 2012). Therefore, it is hypothesized: H2a: Extraversion will positively influence e-filing continuance usage intention.…”

Senior Meets Junior Digital Natives: TESLians Integrating Technology in their Teaching Practice

“…Moreover, the interviewees in the present study possessed three of these four traits. However, these findings were different from Hassanzadeh's (2012) results which reported no significant correlation between Big Five and ICT integration. The different contexts from which the TESL undergraduates grew up can be attributed to this difference.…”

“…Two instruments were employed in the study. Firstly, the Personality and Motivation to Integrate ICT Questionnaire was adapted from Isleem (2003), Li (2008) and Hassanzadeh (2012), and it consisted of four sections. Section I was related to demographics, whereas Sections II to IV utilised the Likert scale to elicit data from the participants.…”

Teacher Trainees’ Use of Computer-Mediated Tasks in Teaching English as a Second Language: A Preliminary Study

“…It provides the basic technology for assisting learners to acquire important communication skills, especially in the English language (Hassanzadeh, 2012). ICT is defined as a 'diverse set of technological tools and resources used to communicate, and to create, disseminate, store, and manage information' (Ghasemi & Hashemi, 2011, 3098).…”