What deters primary school teachers in Serbia from using ICT?

Abstract

Utilizing ICT and the Internet in education is of great significance to both teachers and pupils. It affects their lifelong learning and personal development. The aim of this paper is to investigate the usage of ICT, multimedia technology and the Internet in lessons in primary schools in Serbia. The research encompassed 66 mono-, bi- and tri-lingual primary schools across the Autonomous Province of Voivodina and took place during the 2018/2019 school year. The teachers of science, languages and humanities participated in the research. A comparison of usage of ICT in teaching and lesson preparation between teachers of different socio-demographic characteristics is tested. Furthermore, the multilayer perceptron neural network model was adapted to determine the most important factor in the successful integration of ICT in classrooms. There were five dependent variables: frequency of using ICT for making lectures, work experience, age, teaching field, and gender. The results revealed that the most influencing factors are using ICT at home for making notes and the work experience.