Investigation of Perceptions of Mathematics Teachers toward Calculators and the Implementation of Calculators

The explanatory correlational research study examined the degree of the relationships between the three elements and teachers' implementation of calculators in the mathematics classroom. The three elements include teachers' attitude toward technology, teachers' instructional use of calculators, and teachers' attitude toward calculators. An online survey created for the study was pilot tested, revised, and then used for data collection. This study investigated the perceptions of 33 secondary teachers in the Math Forum's electronic discussion groups during the 2010 - 2011 school year. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS 19.0 software to examine descriptive statistics and frequencies regarding teachers' attitude toward technology, instructional use, attitude toward calculators, and calculator implementation resulting in the identification of a perceived need for relevant training targeting calculators and calculator curriculum. The Spearman rank order was used to measure the relationships between the variables in this study. Using a significance level of .05, the rejection of the first null hypothesis indicated a significant relationship between teachers' attitude toward technology and teachers' implementation of calculators in the classroom (Spearman's rho = .717, p = .002). With a Spearman rank order correlation coefficient .717 (p = .002), there was enough evidence to say that a significant correlation exists between teachers' attitude toward instructional use of calculators and teachers' implementation of calculators in the mathematics classroom at the .05 level. The correlation between teachers' attitude toward calculators and teachers’ implementation of calculators was statistically significant at the .05 level (Spearman's rho = .506, p = .046)