Measuring the Relationship between Individual and Contextual Variables with Technology Implementation: Analyses of Year Three - IMPACT Project
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Date
2009-03-25
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Abstract
The field of educational technology is continually looking to more precisely understand the relationship between leadership, technology-related beliefs, technology resources, supportive environment and technology implementation in classrooms. Previous research has identified relationships between these factors. However, the types of predictors examined, the quality of the dependent variables used and the sophistication of the statistical tools used have sometimes been lacking. This research evaluated these factors within the context of the IMPACT project a three-year technology-enrichment intervention. Utilizing the last year of the data from this project, this cross-sectional study used structural equation modeling (SEM) to investigate the causal relationship between leadership, beliefs, technology resources, supportive environment and technology implementation, which is divided into planning, instruction and student use in classrooms. Differentiating technology implementation is an important contribution of this research as previous studies focused on a particular technology and a specific type of application. We found that teachers’ beliefs about technology had the strongest positive relationship with technology implementation. Leadership was found to indirectly influence technology implementation through teachers’ their beliefs about technology. When developing technology based interventions, policy makers should include evidence of the technology’s effectiveness to influence teachers’ beliefs about that technology. This study provides a unique look at technology implementation using a large scale intervention with a comparison group and differentiated forms of technology implementation.
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Keywords
teachers, technology, computers, implementation, SEM, comparison group, schools, treatment
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Degree
PhD
Discipline
Psychology
