Factors Affecting the Usability of Educational Portals and their Influence on the Information Practices of Pre-Collegiate Educators

摘要

The goal of this dissertation is to develop a model that benefits educators and instructional technologists in building effective educational portals that meet teachers’ specific needs when they seek information in support of teaching preparation. This study consists of a Factor Study and an Acceptance Study to understand K-12 teachers’ information behavior. It has two supporting theories – Task Complexity (Byström & Järvelin, 1995) and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM; Davis, 1993) – to evaluate what factors influences K-12 teachers’ information-seeking behavior and their acceptance of educational portals in relation to tasks associated with lesson preparation. Also, the study used a mixed-method approach to address the research questions and included East Asia Gateway for Linking Educators (EAGLE) and four other portals as platforms to accurately cross-check K-12 teachers’ acceptance. EAGLE (http://noborders.ucis.pitt.edu/eagle/) is an educational portal that provides East Asia resources for teaching and creates by the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) at the University of Pittsburgh. All the participants are NCTA alumni who have an account on EAGLE.udThe main findings of this study are: (1) Teachers’ background, prior technological experiences, extrinsic barriers, intrinsic barriers and attitudes influence information-seeking behavior and their acceptance and usage of educational portals. More specifically, an individual’s attitude is a major factor impacting teachers’ seeking information from educational portals to be incorporated into course design. (2) K-12 teachers’ Perceived Usefulness is an important factor that influences their acceptance of educational portals; however, when K-12 teachers actually use portals, their Perceived Ease of Use becomes a more important factor. (3) The main factors that influence K-12 teachers’ acceptance of educational portal are: Time Issues and System Interface. (4) Teacher’s Computer Self-efficacy (TCS) is a catalyst that changes K-12 teachers’ information behavior when using educational portals. udThe limitations of this study were, first, the participants were volunteers and limited to a small geographic area (Pittsburgh) and emphasized social sciences teachers. Additionally, the data was collected from self-reported measures and not by independently verified instruments. Both of these aspects could limit the generalizability of this study. ud