Technology adoption in K-12 education: A qualitative study using TAM3 to explore why technology is underutilized.

摘要

Educators, researchers, and the government speculate that technology can reform education and contribute to increased student learning. Despite extensive efforts to equip the K-12 schools with technology, the challenge is more than just getting technology into classrooms; it is getting teachers to use the technologies. The goal of this qualitative, multi-case study was to identify factors that influence teachers' decisions to accept and use technology in K-12 education. The technology acceptance model (TAM3) framework was used to apply the model to the education setting. The study was designed to increase the understanding of these factors in order to increase the acceptance, intention to use, and adoption of technology in K-12 education, which, in its current state is highly underutilized. There was one main research question that examined why technology is underutilized and three sub-questions that examined determinants of acceptance of technology, the barriers in using technology, and ways to overcome the barriers. The study used convenience and purposeful methods to acquire a sampling size of 21 participants from six school districts in Maryland, with a minimum of one year of teaching experience. All participants agreed that technology was underutilized in teaching and learning activities in K-12 education, provided their perceptions of why, and responded to the TAM3 questions as to what determines their use or nonuse of technology in the classroom. Findings revealed that barriers to technology adoption continue to prevail, suggesting that the existing structure and curriculum of the education system does not afford enough time to incorporate technology into teaching activities, adequate funding does not exist to acquire the technologies that teachers would like to use for instruction, and more detailed instructional support is needed to reduce the time to prepare and implement the technology. Findings also revealed four new determinants that influenced the teacher's decision to use technology and are recommended as extensions to the TAM3 for predicting technology adoption in the educational setting: a) student engagement and motivation (SEM), b) student feedback and recommendations (SFR), c) student technical support (STS), and d) teacher age (AGE).