An Analysis of a Questionnaire Survey on Teachers' Attitudes toward the Effect of an Electronic Dictionary on Japanese Learners of English

Abstract

A questionnaire survey on the use of an electronic dictionary(ED) was conducted toward Japanese teachers of English in junior and senior high schools. In this article, we attempt to analyze the results of the survey and to find notable trends. The results of each question weve analyzed from the following viewpoints; teachers' age and sex, the size of class they are in charge of (how many students are in a class), their experience of the ED use, etc. And in addition to these analyses, two assumptions were investigated: 1) Many teachers have a traditional principle that a dictionary should be a paper one(PD), 2) Female or higher age-group teachers have rather negative attitudes toward ED. The main finding is that ED is positively recommended by many teachers, especially junior high school teachers, who have ever used ED and who are in charge of small classes. Most of them were unfamiliar with ED before they used it for this survey, but their image of ED has positively changed. And ED was found effective for learners, especially for those beyond senior high school level. The two assumptions were not supported. Very few teachers had such a traditional principle, and as a whole, male and female teachers of all ages were attracted to ED. But more teachers should have participated in this survey so that the results can be safely generalized.