The Relationship between Teachers’ Attitude towards Technology and their Adaptation to the First Virtual instruction Course in COVID-19 Pandemic: The Mediating Role of ICT-Competence and Anxiety on the Technology Application in the Classroom

The present study aimed to expound on the teachers’ adaptation to the first virtual instruction course based on their attitudes toward the use of technology in education, considering the mediating role of their anxiety and competency and in using technology in the classroom. The statistical population of the study included full-time teachers in Kazerun at all educational levels of whom a sample of 263 teachers participated in the study’s online data collection. The measures used in this study included the Aydin and Semerci’s (2017) Teachers' ICT Attitudes Scale, Tondor et al.’s (2017) Teachers’ ICT Competence Questionnaire, Van Acker et al.’s (2013) Teachers’ ICT Anxiety in Classroom, and a researchermade inventory to measure adaptation to the first e-learning course after the COVID-19 outbreak. The results of the Structural Equation Modeling analysis, performed with AMOS-22, showed that teachers' general attitudes on technology have indirect effect on their adaptation to the first virtual instruction course, with the mediation of their increased competence and decreased anxiety about using technology in the classroom. This finding pinpoints the necessity of attention to teachers' attitudes towards the increasing change in teaching methods due to new technologies.