Abstract:

The use of ICT, information and communication technology, in organizations is fundamental, so we do not intend to question its role, or raise doubts whether ICT is suitable for transmitting knowledge among students who seem unmotivated by a traditional learning system but have not developed skills to use and interpret data.

It is quite clear that the major application of ICT, since the last part of the 20th century, has focused on increasing private and public organizations productivity; this could have been the case for teaching in order to improve student’s performance in education; however, that does not seem to have been the case, mainly, we presume, because in most cases teachers do not have the skills to use ICT in teaching. This paper presents the findings of an exploratory research made to identify the grade of maturity in the use of ICT in college education. Our hypothesis is that type of use and maturity level depends on variables like age, profession, main occupation, seniority as a teacher and, whether or not having postgraduate studies.

A survey was applied ((in January, 2011) to a sample of 96 professors who teach graduate classes in management, accounting and computer science at the Facultad de Contaduría y Administración (Accounting and Business Administration) of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Mexico Autonomous National University).

The survey used a questionnaire (General Direction of Academic Computing Services at MANU) which covered nine skills: Internet use, safe use of ICT; data presentation and data processing; media management; database usage; technology resources and specialized software to support teaching; information organization and management; peripheral apps and telecommunications use (this one was not studied), and it was ranked in three levels of ICT use (basic, advanced and expert).
Considering that for the sample selection the criteria used was that of choosing the most representative professor academies in each career, we cannot make generalizations across the population because non-probability sampling; however, it did show significant results: we found that percentage of users varies depending on type of ICT use and features of professor profile; for instance, Internet search for useful information has the highest percentage regardless of the feature being analyzed; having postgraduate studies makes a difference when consulting digital libraries; locating a simulator is more frequent among professors under 31; plug-ins installation for the use of interactive gadgets is more frequent among computer science graduates, and while accounting graduates in general have little use for Internet as a source of information and resources, this is not the case when “located in a site-specific information”.

One of the main findings is that younger professors have more skills in the use of ICT for teaching; nevertheless, these skills are at a basic level. The findings, in this non- probabilistic sample, show that it is a low percentage of professors who have skills at the advanced level, and even lower at the expert level.

Keywords:

ICT, Maturity in the use.