The Reality of Using Electronic Supervisionin Government Schools from Supervisors’Perspectives in the Northern West Bank

This study aims at identifying the reality of electronic supervision in the governmental schools, as perceived by the Ministry of Education supervisors in the northern West Bank, and the impact of a number of variables, such as gender, qualifications, supervision experience, major and the location of the directorate of education on this perception. In order to achieve these two ends, the researcher used the analytical descriptive method, quantitative and qualitative tools such as interviews and a questionnaire. Eight heads of supervision departments in the directorates of education in northern West Bank were interviewed and their interviews were recorded and analyzed . The researcher also developed a questionnaire on the reality of electronic supervision. Then the questionnaire was distributed on 244 male and female supervisors. After collection, the data were coded, fed into the computer and processed statistically using the SPSS program. After data analysis, it was found that there was an agreement in the responses of the participants concerning the use of electronic supervision in their daily work. The total score of their responses to the question about the reality of the use of electronic supervision was 79.4%. The total score of the four domains of the study, concerning the knowledge of the electronic supervision concept, was 81.1%, a very high score. This result was confirmed by the interviews analysis conducted with the heads of supervision departments. There was a great importance for electronic supervision according to them. The heads of electronic supervision departments argued that the enhancement of technology in education was very necessary as it is one of the requirements of the Ministry of Education . They pointed out that there were future plans to employ technology in supervision work. Analysis of data of interviews also revealed a significant agreement with the results of the questionnaire data analysis on the obstacles facing the process of electronic supervision. These obstacles included poor infrastructure such as shortage of hardware and poor internet networks or their absence, let alone the lack of financial support for electronic supervision project. There were also human obstacles. The old generation of teachers and supervisors resists the idea of electronic supervision. There were also some administrative obstacles. It was also found that there were no statistically significant differences at α = 0.05 between the averages of the responses of the participants towards the reality of using electronic supervision in the governmental schools, according to the school supervisors in northern West Bank, which might be attributed to the variables of gender and academic qualification in the total score of first, third and fourth domains of the study. However, there were differences, in the second domain of knowledge of the importance of electronic supervision, in favor of male supervisors holding M.A. degrees and above. The results also showed there were no statistically significant differences at α= 0.05 between the averages of the responses of the participants of study towards the current state of the use of electronic supervision in public schools, according to school supervisors, which might be attributed to variables of specialization and years of experience in the total score in the first, second, third and fourth domains of the study. In the light of the study findings, the researcher recommends the following: a. Studying the plan of the Ministry of Education and its policies towards technology. b. Studying the possibility of using technology not only in communication, but also in counseling and supervision processes c. Building up an electronic infrastructure to become a base for electronic supervision through linkage of schools and ministries with the internet. d. Providing all supervisors and teachers with computers and activating the role of computer labs in schools.