Teachers' and students' perspectives towards the use of ICT in a Turkish school for pupils with hearing impairment.

This doctoral research aimed to investigate the perspectives of teachers, principals and students on the nature and usefulness of ICT use in a Turkish special education school to support pedagogy and promote communication for students with hearing impairment. New ways of teaching and learning were assessed as a part of this study via creating an enhanced communication environment through a speech recognition program called “Dikte” which allowed participants to experience facilitated learning. Specifically, the beliefs on ICT use held by sixteen special education teachers, ten students with hearing impairment and three principals were examined. A case study was employed as a methodological approach in this study. Questionnaires, interviews and observations were the methods for data collection on participants’ views regarding ICT use and speech recognition (SR) program application. A case study approach was important in a sense that it allowed the researcher to deeply explore how ICT and SR were employed by engaging with students and teachers in their daily educational activities. The findings suggested that ICT provide some advantages in supporting communication in class through access to better-developed hearing devices, social media tools and computer programmes. ICT/SR use had implications regarding pedagogical support including developing teaching and learning resources (e.g. classroom notes, audio-visual teaching, material in audio and text formats), shifting teacher to student-centred pedagogies and enhancing students’ comprehension, motivation and social participation. The study also examined the factors that support or hinder ICT use in a special education school. Supporting factors were ICT knowledge of teachers and students (being digital natives), advanced ICT infrastructure that facilitated hearing features. Hindering factors were lack of school administration support, lack of support from the Ministry of National Education of Turkey, lack of in-service teacher training and knowledge of ICT use. The study made a novel contribution to examining users’ views about ICT as a tool for supporting teaching and learning in students with hearing impairment in Turkey, raising issues about the pedagogical and curricular implications for using ICT in special schools and the role of the state in supporting this