In November 1998, the Hong Kong Government published the policy document entitled "Information Technology for Learning in a New Era Five-Year Strategy 1998/99 to 2002/03" and defined the goals and the scope of the development of Information Technology in education in Hong Kong. One of the goals is to encourage using Information Technology (I.T.) in education and to promote students' ability in handling information. As the role of I.T. is becoming more and more important in education, schools themselves have also implemented I.T. to various extents. The main purpose of this study is to explore the impacts of the external environment on the development of I.T. in Hong Kong primary schools and examine also the relationship between the use of I.T. in education and teaching effectiveness in Hong Kong primary schools.
This study uses a quantitative approach to achieve the above purposes. Questionnaires were sent to 823 teachers from 25 Hong Kong primary schools to solicit their views on the impact of I.T. in school education, the use of I.T. education and their perceptions of teaching effectiveness.
The School Environment Constraint Instrument developed by Lam (1989) was adopted to meet the context of Hong Kong primary schools and modified for this study. Two new factors "New Arrivals" and "Language Policy" are used to replace the original factors of 'Ethnicity' and 'Second Language'. The other two research instruments which measured "Information Technology Development" and "Teaching Effectiveness" were developed by the Researcher.
The results of the research indicate that: (1) the "Policy" factor and "Funding" factor had a high, significant correlation with the different aspects of I.T. development of Hong Kong primary schools; (2) a school with well-developed I.T. had a positive significant correlation with "Teaching Effectiveness".
Recommendations have been made for school administrators' consideration in the development of I.T. systems in primary