Survey reveals teachers not getting the most out of their ICT

Released 23/01/2012

Teachers find MIS data difficult to make use of and online learning resources hard to identify according to a survey

The survey commissioned by Pearson, with the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) of over 1,500 teachers in the UK, was part of its Teacher Voice omnibus survey in November 2011.

The results revealed huge differences in how secondary and primary school teachers use ICT both in teaching and in communicating with parents, and the difficulties teachers are having in utilising data effectively.

Eighty-five per cent of primary school teachers mainly communicate with parents in person, but only 16% of secondary school teachers do the same. With 84% of teachers using ICT to track pupil progress, the NFER survey also found that overall, 39% of teachers did not feel that their school’s current MIS system was easy and quick to use.

The results indicate that MIS systems are not necessarily achieving what they were created to do, as a quarter of teachers surveyed said that they didn’t feel that their MIS software enabled them to make effective use of data as part of raising attainment.

The results also revealed a need for resources to be more easily accessible, as nearly two-thirds of teachers surveyed by NFER found it challenging to identify the high quality resources they needed amongst the teaching resources available on the Internet.

Justin Reilly, MD of Pearson Fronter said: “The NFER survey we commissioned found that over 45% of teachers surveyed would like to see more accreditation in place to help them identify high quality and tested online resources.”

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