Attitudes and self-efficacies of full-time and part-time community/technical college remedial English instructors toward technology and its use in curriculum and instruction

The attitudes and self-efficacies of part-time and full-time remedial English instructors toward computer technology and its use in curriculum and instruction may be a key determiner in technology equity for remedial English students. Millions of dollars have been spent on technology, yet equity in access and instruction for the remedial students is still a major issue facing community colleges. This problem seems to be particularly significant in those courses taught by part-time faculty. In order to investigate these issues, an instrument designed to measure the attitudes and self-efficacies of faculty was distributed to Alabama community college remedial English teachers at 21 community colleges and four technical colleges. Descriptive statistics revealed that the majority of respondents had a positive attitude toward technology and its use in curriculum and instruction, but full-time faculty had a more positive self-efficacy than part-time. Chi square analyses revealed significant relationships between attitudes and age and access to computers and labs. Chi square analyses also revealed that there are significant relationships between self-efficacies and the following: age, number of professional classes or workshops attended, and access to computers and labs. An ANOVA revealed significant differences in self-efficacies and number of years employed.