Technology Integration: Yet to Happen at Malaysian Universities

Technology has the potential of "appealing to different learning styles and pro-offering individualized input to accommodate the learner internal variables that are crucial to the input-to-intake process." (Zhao 2005, p. 98). Both the learners and teachers can benefit from technology application in language classes; teachers will enjoy the ease of delivering teaching materials and learners will enjoy the autonomous anytime-anywhere learning accompanied with the variety of authentic materials. This paper tends to investigate the factors encouraging or inhibiting University Putra Malaysia (UPM) lecturers to integrate technology in their language classes. The instrument applied in this study is a questionnaire composing of 4 different sections. Section 1 elicits the demographic details of participants, section 2 measures their perceptions about diffusion of innovation based on Roger's model, section 3 measures participants' technology application based on The National Educational Technology Standards For Teachers and finally section 4 derives information about the type of technology they apply in their classes. Data collected was used to examine the factors influencing UPM lecturers' perception about technology application. Our analysis of data proved that although the participants were all familiar with technology, they did not integrate it much in their classes which may be explained by cultural beliefs.