Instrument (questionnaire)

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assistant lecturers (41%) teach between 12 to 18 hours per week. Lecturers teaching load is 10 to 15 hours per week. Assistant professors teach 8 to 10 hours per week and professors teaching load is 6 to 9 hours per week.

Table 6. Distribution of the participants

Academic title Teaching loads per week/

hours

N %

Assistant lecturer 12 to 18 65 54.2

Lecturer 10 to 15 45 37.5

Assistant Professor 8 to 12 7 5.8

Professor 6 to 9 3 2.5

N 120 100

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study. The development of the questionnaire is based on the recommendation of Dörnyei and Csizér (2012), the researcher's experience and an extensive review of the literature used in deferent educational backgrounds for instance: Moganashwari, Parilah and Shah (2013), Erdoğan Tezci (2010), Papanastasiou, and Angeli, (2008), Asztalos (2016).

To ensure the validity of responses to the questions asked, the questionnaire and its creation involved the following four steps:

A. Initial development of content and items B. Think-aloud protocol

C. Piloting the questionnaire D. Final version

4.3.1 Initial development of content and items

The development of the questionnaire content, number and type of questions as well as its validation followed the procedures and recommendations of Dörnyei (2010) in the "questionnaires in second language research: Construction, administration, and processing (2^nd ed.)" and "how to design and analyze surveys in second language acquisition research" by Dörnyei and Csizér (2012).

The first step in developing the questionnaire was to specify and define the main constructs of the questionnaire. This was important to avoid the threat to the validity of the instrument (Dörnyei & Csizér, 2012).

The constructs were six and defined as follows:

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1. Skill: the purpose of this construct was to find out how well the participants can use ICT tools.

2. Use: this construct was intended to find out how often the participants use ICTs in their classroom teaching.

3. Access: this construct was intended to identify the level of ICTs access/

availability in the teaching environment.

4. Activity: the purpose of this construct was to find out how ICTs use is reflected in their teaching.

5. Attitude: this construct aimed to identify how teachers feel about utilizing ICT tools in teaching English as a foreign language.

6. Difficulty: this construct aimed to find out the obstacles and challenges teachers face in their attempts to use ICT in their teaching.

After creating the main constructs of the questionnaire, I continued to compose the initial pool items based on reading an extensive review of the literature relating to each construct. I went through all the items and discussed each survey question with people such as PhD students and teachers who had rich knowledge or are experts on the topic of the study. The discussions were quite helpful to revise the pool items, for instance unifying the rating scales, deleting some items and generating some new, simplifying the language, reordering the items and the main sections of the

questionnaire such as taking the demographic section to the end of the questionnaire.

After revising the pool items based on the feedback of in-class discussion, I carried out two think-aloud protocols.

65 4.3.2 Think-aloud protocol

In order to put together the final version of the questionnaire, I carried out two think-aloud protocols with a teacher and a PhD student who were similar to the target group of the participants for "whom it has been designed" (Dörnyei & Csizér, 2012, p.

79). The detailed feedbacks of the think-aloud protocols were important to put together the final version of the questionnaire and make sure that the participants will interpret the items in the way I intended.

I sent the teacher an email regarding his willingness as a volunteer participant;

after two days, I received a positive reply. Then the think-aloud protocol was conducted via Skype because we live in two different countries. First of all, I greeted him and sent him the questionnaire. After emphasizing the objective of the think-aloud protocol, which is to evaluate the questionnaire items, not himself and he was also asked to indicate any error or suggest any improvement he considered necessary. His feedback resulted in rewording, replacing and deleting some items; for instance, one of the questions was:

Did you participate in any ICT training?

Yes NO

If Yes, where

At the university, abroad, another place, please identify….

The question was changed to Yes No question, and the participants were asked whether they are interested in participating in ICT training.

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The think-aloud protocol took 50 minutes, which was quite long that the expected time to complete the questionnaire, which was expected to be completed in 25-30 minutes. The think-loud protocol took longer because the participant kept speaking and asking questions about the items of the questionnaire. After finishing the think-aloud protocol, I thanked him for his participation.

In addition, I carried out one more think-aloud protocol with a PhD student in order to verify whether the feedback of the first think-aloud protocol was useful to improve the quality of the questionnaire.

4.3.3 Final version

After the think-aloud protocols, I put together the final version of the questionnaire, which consisted of eight sections and two Yes/No questions.

In the first section, the teachers had to answer 19 items about how well they use ICT tools on a 5 Likert scale where 5 represented the highest level value (I can use it very well), and 1 represents the lowest level value (I cannot use it ).

The second section was 19 items in which the teachers were asked how often they use ICT. They had to respond to the questions on a 5 Likert where 5 represented the highest level value "almost daily", and 1 represents the lowest level value "never".

The third section of the questionnaire included 26 items about using ICT tools for different teaching activities. The teachers rated their responses on a 5 Likert scale with 5 being "always" and 1 being "not at all" for each item.

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The fourth section of the survey contained ten items about the availability of ICT tools in the teaching context. The teachers had to respond to the items on a 5 Likert scale, where 5 represented the highest level value "in all classrooms", and 1 represents the lowest level value (no classroom).

The fifth section included 16 items about the difficulties the teacher may face when they attempt to use ICT in the process of teaching. The participants rated their answers on a 5 Likert scale where 5 is "very difficult", and 1 is "no difficulty at all".

The sixth section included 17 items about the attitudes of the teachers towards the use of ICT in the process of teaching. The participants rated their answers on a 5 Likert scale where 5 represented the highest level value "absolutely agree" and 1 represents the lowest level value "absolutely disagree".

The seventh section of the questionnaire included two yes-no questions about taking ICT professional training courses. And the final section of the survey was a demographic section in which the teachers had to specify their gender, age, years of teaching experience, academic title, teaching load per week, education level and teaching hours/week (Appendix A). For each item, only one answer was required.

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