60_Technology Acceptance On teachers

Modelling technology acceptance in education: A Study of pre-service teachers
Timothy Teo, Computers in Education 52 (2009) 302-312

The relevance of this article spreads around a number of topics for this specific Blog. The article provides a nice overview of TAM (technology Acceptance Model) and other perception-related factors that drive the use of technology in teachers. And since the modification and adaptations of curricula into online learning deliveries will involve teachers at some point in time (whether as designers or actual providers) the information from this research is worth considering.

[...] teachers used computers infrequently and often used games and drills in the classroom. (p.302)

Chances are a few ESL teachers we may need to work with in the future, as institutions move towards online deliveries, will fall into this described category. The article mentions, amongst other factors that influence this lack of knowledge and use of computers in F2F deliveries as due to:

• lack of confidence
• lack of opportunities for PD
• lack of technical ongoing support

And since:

"The teacher is the key to effective use of technology in the educational system and it is important for teachers to understand the precise role of technology in teaching and learning so that they can learn to cope effectively with the pressure created by the continual innovation in educational technology and constant need to prioritize and use of technology"... (p.302)

considerations around acceptance of use and limiting factors is important. We have discovered on several occasions, in this blog and its readings, that a key element of success in implementing or working with online technologies is the understanding of how they work and the matching of the effective learning objectives with the proper use of media.

The author states that there are three critical categories of factors that influence teachers use of technology: personal, computer and environmental.

While TAM focuses on the causal relationship between perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEU) and personal attitudes towards computer use, the researcher utilized additional conditions and factors to explain its observations from the study. These are:

• technological complexity - TC - the degree to which technology is perceived to be difficult to understand and use
• computer self-efficacy (CSE) - an individual's judgment on their capabilities to deal with the technology; and
• facilitating conditions (FC) - the environment that facilitates an individual's desire to perform a task

These six elements combined built the basis for the instrument used in the research and brought the author to consider a number of points (the more salient are listed below in connection to the overall theme of this blog):

1. positive attitudes do seem to have a direct impact on behavioural intention - thus we can strive to create safe and caring environments, for professional development, that foster positive attitudes to implement technology use
2. perception of adequate support to enable users also seems stronger than PEU and can impact individuals final decision to try out the technology
3. PEU can influence attitude - if I perceive the technology is not easy to use then I think it must not be useful.
4. opportunity to participate in ongoing PD sessions was also found to be a very relevant and important factor

The results of this study showed that perceived usefulness, attitude towards computer use, and computer self-efficacy have direct effect on behavioural intention to use technology, while perceived ease of use, and technological complexity, and facilitating conditions affect behavioural intention use directly. (309)

Needless to say that these influencing factors, whether at the teacher, pre-service teacher or even at the learner level need to be taken into consideration when planning for delivery changes such as the one discussed through this blog.