Title: Investigating the barriers affecting integration of ICT for teaching and learning in schools

Authors: Ng Kai Shi

Addresses: Nan Hua Primary School, 30 Jln Lempeng, 128806, Singapore

Abstract: This article identifies three barriers to the integration of ICT for teaching and learning in schools. The first order barriers identified are external factors which affect teachers. This includes the lack of adequate infrastructure, leadership, organisational, technical and administrative support, time to plan and execute the lesson as well as students' competency. Second order barriers are intrinsic factors affecting teachers' integration of ICT. They include beliefs about teaching and learning conventional classroom practices and the readiness to accept changes. They are more difficult to deal with as the process of eliminating these barriers often involves a challenge to personal and deeply rooted thinking. Studies (Chai et al., 2013; Tsai and Chai, 2012) suggested that the presence of a third order barrier is the reason why removal of first and second order barriers did not result in successful ICT integration. This third order barrier is teachers' lack of design thinking to tackle the 'wicked problem' of ICT integration. This article concludes with suggested strategies to overcome the third order barrier and a proposed research study.

Keywords: ICT integration; teaching and learning; integration barriers; third order barriers; design thinking; wicked problem; Singapore; schools; information and communications technology; information technology; infrastructure; leadership; organisational support; technical support; administrative support; planning time; execution time; student competency.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSMILE.2016.081281

International Journal of Social Media and Interactive Learning Environments, 2016 Vol.4 No.4, pp.350 - 363

Received: 08 Aug 2016
Accepted: 07 Sep 2016
Published online: 01 Jan 2017 *

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