Abstract:

The technological development of society impels the school, and more specifically, higher education, to include in its syllabus the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

The preparation of students to enter the job market means that higher education has to be aware of these tools and include them, transversally, in the different subjects of the courses.

The Tourism field is particularly susceptible to the use of technologies, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic because the use of technologies has become imperative. In this sense, a questionnaire survey was applied to 83 students from courses in the field of Tourism of three higher education institutions in Portugal, with the aim of understanding how ICTs are being integrated into the teaching and learning process and whether this process is an asset in preparing students for the job market. The questionnaire survey was made available online by the course teachers and was replied to during classes and sociodemographic, infrastructural and ICT usage practices within the classroom were recorded.

The main conclusions point to the fact that there is still a long way to go in terms of equipping schools and integrating technologies in teaching. With regard to courses in the field of Tourism. The results reveal that the integration of ICT was not enhanced and that technologies are still undervalued in the preparation of students. The use of these tools is based on their most elementary use, which is substantiated, in most cases, by the simple use of PowerPoint and the use of the Internet to research for school content. In terms of technological equipment, not all classrooms are equipped which limits its use, meaning that when it is necessary to use it, it is necessary to change classroom or choose to use the cell phone itself, with all the limitations that this entails.

Keywords:

Higher education, ICT, Portugal, Tourism.