The development and testing of an instrument to measure mathematics teachers' attitudes toward their use of computers in mathematics instruction

A scale titled Mathematics Teachers' Attitudes Toward Using Computers (MTATUC) and based on a modification of the theory of reasoned action was developed to measure the attitudes of mathematics teachers in grades 7 to 13 toward their use of computers in instruction. The 44-item MTATUC Scale contains three subscales to measure beliefs, attitudes toward behavior and intentions which are the cognitive, affective and behavioral intention components of attitudes, respectively. A preliminary 74-item scale was tested with 23 mathematics teachers. The scale was reduced to 44 items, and this final scale was tested with 40 mathematics teachers, most at the secondary level. The teachers were fi"om one small liberal arts college, one junior high and 13 high schools from four school systems in East Tennessee. Almost all had training and experience with computers. Most had only limited numbers of computers available for instruction; several had no access to computers. The reliability of the scale was established with internal consistency estimated at 0.90 for the scale and 0.74 to 0.93 for the subscales. Test-retest reliability was satisfactory for the scale but marginal for two subscales. Content, concurrent and construct validities were established when the scale is used to measure the attitudes of high school mathematics teachers, with limited computer assets available, toward their use of computers in instruction. It was concluded that secondary mathematics teachers who hold more positive attitudes toward the use of computers use them more frequently. Correlation of scale scores with self-reported use of computers was 0 .40, and scale scores were used to correctly classify 79 percent of the teachers as relatively low or high frequency users of computers. Also, secondary mathematics teachers who are more knowledgeable of and experienced with computers use them in instruction more frequently.