The purpose of this study was to describe the current status of the utilization of educational technology in university-level nursing programs in The Arab Republic of Egypt.
Three major indicators of utilization of educational technology were used in this study to describe the overall status. These indicators were: (1) Available Resources, (2) Faculty Awareness and use of different teaching strategies and media materials, (3) Faculty attitude toward media.
A survey of the available instructional resources in The High Institute of Nursing at Cairo and Alexandria Universities were conducted. The population comprised a total of 115 faculty members and instructors in both programs. Respondent data were collected by means of two questionnaires: (1) Faculty Awareness and Use of Alternative Teaching Strategies and Media Materials, and (2) Media Attitude Profile. The design and methodology of this study followed the pattern of a descriptive study.
A comparative analysis between both programs resulted in the following findings: (1) Both programs were found to be in similar states of inadequacy regarding the available instructional resources, although as an overall evaluation, the Cairo Program seemed to be slightly more advantaged. (2) A Simple Analysis of Variance procedure found significant differences among faculty responses in both programs in regards to (a) degree of awareness, (b) frequency of use, and (c) attitude profile. Examination of means indicated that the Cairo program faculty maintained a higher degree of awareness, greater frequency of use and more positive attitudes. (3) The speculation of whether the degree of awareness or the frequency of use of media in instruction might have had an impact on the faculty attitude toward media was supported by the more consistent pattern among the faculties to conclude that frequency of use of media had a more consistent correlation with faculty attitude toward media.
The findings of this study provided some justification to suggest that a combination of availability of resources and greater frequency of use is more likely to result in more favorable attitudes among faculty which may lead to greater utilization of educational technology in their instructional process.
