Lebanese Public Schools Principals’ Attitudes, Level of ICT Use and Leadership Style

Year 2018, Volume: 9 , 303 - 315, 18.08.2018

Suzanne El Takach Zalpha Ayoubı İbrahim Kıbbı

Abstract

The
purpose of this study was to investigate attitudes towards ICT, level of ICT
use, and leadership style of the Lebanese public schools’ attending a training
program at the Lebanese University, Faculty of Education. The training program, in which 204 principals
from all over Lebanon participated, lasted for three months. At the end
of the program, they filled a survey questionnaire and only 192 filled-in the
questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive analysis and
correlations were calculated to identify the relationships between ICT use and
gender, age, number of computers at school, earned Diploma, geographical
location. School
principals agreed that they benefit greatly from the ICT course; it helped them
in improving their computer skills relevant to their administrative work. Findings
also suggest that there is a no significant correlation between the use of ICT
and school principal gender and age, the good equipment of schools is
irrelevant with the school geographical location (urban/rural city). Moreover, within
this study, the researchers identify significant challenges faced by the
trainees’ school principals, for instance, the little number and the lack of
computers in their schools, the absence of IT teachers and even many of them
did not use often computers in their daily routine works before the training
program. Finally, Lebanese school principals adopted an administrative style
with an emphasis on the accountable management behavior. Future qualitative
studies are recommended to gain in-depth knowledge about the use of ICT by
school principals in their schools.

Keywords

School principals’ attitudes, University training program, ICT

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