Student Attitudes toward Technology Enhanced History Education: Comparison between Turkish and American Students

Abstract

Similar with all educational approaches in technology enhanced instruction teacher and student attitudes toward the new approach plays a critical role in determining its effectiveness. The purpose of the study is to examine Turkish and American student attitudes and thoughts toward the use of educational technologies in history courses and the factors that might affect their attitudes. The study also aims to compare the results to determine whether there are any differences between the attitudes of Turkish and American student.This study was conducted with 197 American students from Upper Saint Claire High school in Pittsburgh, PA, and 214 Turkish students from Konya High school who volutered for this study. The required data for this study were gathered by a 26-item technology questionnaire, which included 7 multiple-choice questions and 19 Likert scale questions. This questionnaire was developed to gather data on five different areas of interest: (1) demographic information, (2) participants' computer- and Internet-usage skills, (3) the level of technology used in history classrooms, (4) participants' attitudes toward technology-enhanced history education, and (5) participants' attitudes toward history. Most of the Turkish and American students rated themselves as being very well experienced on the eight computer- and Internet-usage skills targeted in this study. But the comparison of the data indicated that American students have higher computer- and Internet-usage skills than Turkish students do, and this difference is statistically significant (p = 0.001). Most of the Turkish and American students showed positive attitudes on using educational technologies in history classrooms. A majority of the Turkish and American students stated that they would be able to focus and learn better if more technological materials were used in classroom activities, and this, in turn, would increase their academic achievements.