Factors Impacting Technology Integration in the Teaching and Learning Process

Factors Impacting Technology Integration in the Teaching and Learning Process: Application for Career and Technical Education

Abstract: This paper overviews how the technology adoption model and technology integration can be used to examine teachers’ integration of technology in the teaching and learning process. Specifically, it examines areas such as perceived usefulness of technology, perceived ease of use, attitudes toward technology, and the intentions to use the technology. This presentation is from the initial stages of an integrative review of literature based on empirical research to exam career and technical education teachers. The potential findings from the research are placed into a format that can be applied for administrators and teachers that seek to have wide use of technology in the teaching and learning process. The specific results of this paper will help an administrator, department chair, or teacher create a situation that will support the teachers’ adoption of technology. While this paper focused on career and technical educators, the findings would be valuable for those in any educational context.

Introduction

There has been a driving force to infuse technology into education at all levels in the United States. Government agencies, federal legislation, and national and state technological standards encourage teachers to use technology in their lessons as a teaching tool (Lynch, 2000). Standards for technology have existed for many years, yet it is still a challenge for teachers to infuse technology into their teaching. The adoption of new technology in business and industry is placing additional emphasis on the need for training and education. Changes in the workforce due to the technological revolution have created a demand for career and technical educators (CTE) to be computer and technologically literate. Additionally, changes in delivery methods requiring them to adapt to using technology in the teaching and learning process in preparing the students for the workforce.

CTE is a collective term used to identify curriculum programs designed to prepare students to acquire education and job skills, enabling them to enter employment (Lynch, 2000). CTE teachers are a subset of all educators and are unique since they often have the predominant responsibility of teaching skills for highly technical jobs and even some with the challenge to deliver the instruction for those entering the workforce in computer careers (McCoy, 2001). As a result, CTE teachers need to master technological skills to be prepared to teach their students for these changing environments. Therefore, CTE teachers must be able to adapt and keep up with constantly changing technology. Since many jobs in the future will involve technology, it is critical for students to have the education and skills to perform in the twenty-first century (McCoy, 2001).

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this project was to examine if there is a relationship between technology integration and the teaching and learning process for CTE teachers. Technology integration is defined as employing technology to support, enhance, inspire and create learning (Kotrlik and Redman, 2005). The teaching and learning process is defined as the implementation of instructional activities that result in student learning (Kotrlik and Redmann, 2005). Specifically the review is to expand to examine career and technical educators and their attitudes, environment, perceptions, and other factors, such as barriers, perceived teaching effectiveness, technology anxiety, perceived ease

of use and perceived usefulness, in relation to technology adoption. This study started to explore if the factors can explain the level of technology integration.

Research Questions

This project was an integrative review of literature on technology adoption in CTE. A comprehensive review of the literature using a number of databases was conducted. The specific research questions were

How much are career and technical educators integrating technology in teaching and learning?

How do career and technical education teachers perceived the usefulness and ease of use of technology into the teaching and learning process?

Do selected factors (barriers, perceived teaching effectiveness, technology anxiety, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness), demographic and environmental variables impact technology integration in the teaching and learning process for career and technical educators?

Literature Review

The body of literature on the use and integration of technology in the classroom provides the basis for this study. This study was designed to determine the extent to which CTE teachers are integrating technology into their classrooms. The researcher also determined the variables and factors that influence integration of technology. Career and Technical Education teacher’s experiences are examined in their relation to the Technology Acceptance Model and the Kotrlik and Redmann Technology Integration Scale.

Technology Adoption Model

This research will examine the level of technology integration by Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers based on attitudes, beliefs, and experience. Adapted from the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Fishbein & Ajzen 1975; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) draws on the theoretical basis of the TRA to specify casual linkages among beliefs, user attitudes, intentions, and actual behavior. What causes people to accept of reject information technology? People tend to use or not use an application to the extent they believe it will help them perform their job better, this is referred to as perceived usefulness (Davis, 1989).Studies of the technology adoption model assist in explaining reasons that technology is accepted or rejected in education.

Individuals are constantly making decisions about accepting, adopting, and using computer and information technologies (Venkatesh and Davis, 1996). Research has explored the determinants of such a decision has revealed perceived ease of use is a determinant of intention to use, and also a determinant of perceived usefulness, a key determinant of intention to use (Venkatesh and Davis, 1996). Figure illustrates the TAM. The TAM uses two specific beliefs; perceived was of use (EOU) and the user’s perception of the amount of effort needed to use the system, and perceived usefulness (U), the user’s perception of the degree to which using the system will improve his or her performance in the workplace (Venkatesh and Davis, 1996). User intentions have proved to be better predictors of system usage than competing predictors such as realism of expectations, motivational force, value, and user involvement and satisfaction (Venkatesh and Davis, 1996).

After various testing and research the TAM has developed to include external variables that could influence how an individual accepts or rejects technology. Across the literature, researchers have acknowledged the parsimony robustness of the TAM, and the ease with which it can be applied in different situations (Venkatesh, 2000). Gaining an understanding of the antecedents of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness will enable the development of more meaningful design and training interventions to improve user acceptance and use of information technologies (Venkatesh, 2000). Figure 2 denotes the final version of the TAM theory.

Figure 3 below, represents an initial conceptual model of how the variables relate to intent to use technology for my future study of CTE teachers. This model only shows how to examine the direct effects on behavioral intention to use technology. It is anticipated that external variables will help to further examine technology adoption.

Kotrlik-Redman Technology Integration Scale

The Kotrlik-Redmann Technology Integration Scale (Kotrlik & Redmann, 2003) was created to evaluate CTE teachers’ technology integration in the classroom. The instrument development process was based on Gable and Wolf’s (1993) instrument development guidelines. The technology integration scale contained four subscales: exploration, experimentation, adoption, and advanced integration (Redmann and Kotrlik, 2004. The reliability was estimated by the internal consistency and Cronbach’s alphas for each scale are as follows: exploration scale?
?= .81, experimentation scale a = .94, adoption scale a = .97, integration scale a = .88.

The four phases of the Kotrlik-Redmann Integration model (Kotrlik & Redman, 2003) are defined as follows:

• Exploration- Thinking About Using Technology, teachers seek to learn about technology and how
• to use it
• Experimentation- Beginning To Use Technology, physical changes begin to happen in classroom,
• instructors focus more on using technology for instructional purposes and a few instructional exercises
• Adoption- Using Technology Regularly, physical changes evident in classrooms, instructors use technology for instructional purposes and instructional exercises with games, simulations, spreadsheets, databases, technology emerges as a major instructional theme
• Advanced Integration- Using Technology Innovatively, instructors pursue innovative ways to use technology to improve learning, students take on new challenges beyond traditional from traditional assignments and activities

From these four levels, CTE teachers were evaluated on their technology integration.

Findings for Teachers and Administrators

The following are initial findings from the integrated review. The findings will be presented in terms of the research questions.

Research question one was to examine how much are Career and Technical educators integrating technology in teaching and learning. In researching technology integration, the majority of research has been conducted by Kotrlik and Redmanm in the state of Louisiana. Therefore from the research reviewed, the findings concluded that the majority of Career and Technical Education teachers in Louisiana were in the exploration and adoption phases of the technology integration model (Kotrlik & Redmann, 2003; Redmann and Kotrlik, 2004).

Research question two was to see how career and technical education teachers perceived the usefulness and ease of use of technology into the teaching and learning process. Specifically, research in CTE has not explored the ease of use and useful of technology in relation to adoption. In general, perceived usefulness and ease of use were

significantly correlated with self-reported indicants of system use (Davis, 1989). One of the most significant findings is the relative strength of the usefulness-usage relationship compared to the ease of use-usage relationship (Davis, 1989). The research found that usefulness was significantly more strongly linked to usage than was ease of use. This prominence of perceived usefulness makes sense conceptually; users are driven to adopt an application primarily because of the functions it performs for them. Users are often more apt to deal with some difficulty of a system if it provides critically needed functionality (Davis, 1989). No amount of ease of use can compensate for a system that does not perform a useful function (Davis, 1989).

Research question 3 was to examine if selected factors (barriers, perceived teaching effectiveness, technology anxiety, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness), demographic and environmental variables impact technology integration in the teaching and learning process for career and technical educators.

Barriers.?With agricultural educators barriers explained significant portion of integration with agriscience paper (Kotrlik, Redman, and Douglas, 2003). Redmann and Kotrlik’s (2004) examined potential barriers preventing technology integration, CTE teachers. In Louisiana only minor barriers exist that prevent them from integrating technology into the teaching learning process.

Perceived Effectiveness.?Kotrlik, Redman, and Douglas (2003) also stated that “the teachers perception of their own teaching effectiveness” (p. 87) explained a significant amount of integration of technology. The research also revealed teachers perceive themselves as effective teachers but the analysis of variance showed teachers differ in their views in perceptions of teaching effectiveness.

Technology Anxiety.?Finally after evaluating teacher’s anxiety towards using technology the research showed teachers feel some anxiety when they think about technology and agriscience teachers feel more than business and marketing teachers (Kotrlik and Redmann, 2004). Fletcher and Deeds (1994) found that teachers level of computer skills, the proficiency of students, typing skills, and years of teaching experience explain computer anxiety. In a recent study of agriscience teachers computer anxiety also explained a significant amount of integration levels.

Significance of Findings for Teachers and Administrators

Identifying the extent that Career and Technical Education teachers are integrating technology into their classrooms will contribute to the developing of a profile of the CTE teacher and strategies to increase technology integration. Economists are widely pointing out, it is no longer a post-agricultural or post-industrial world (Lynch, 2000), Instead this is a new world of fast communications, decision making, technological society (Lynch, 2000). Employers are increasingly looking for employee’s abilities to work effectively, competence in general education (reading, writing, calculating, and computing), solve problems, effectively use technology, use interpersonal skills, and ability to work with others (Lynch, 2000). This ultimately leads back to the student’s education and the importance of career and technical education and its role in the new economy.

“In the educational community, the level of technology integration can deeply affect what teachers do and what their student’s experience (Redmann, Kotrlik and Douglas, 2003). There has been a plethora of research on the teacher in general and the use and integration of technology into the classroom, however, very little research on the Career and Technical Education teacher. Career and Technical education provides students with hands-on experience with business-related experience to assist in the preparation for the workforce. The technologies from CTE afford students the tools to explore, experiment, construct, converse, and reflect on what they are doing, so they can learn from they are doing (Machnaik, 2002). Therefore it is critical that the CTE teacher have knowledge of the new economy and all the aspects that are changing and advancing.

Conclusions

While this paper is just an initial examination of the literature, similar factors are appearing with CTE teachers that lead to match the technology adoption literature. This research needs to be extended and create a deeper view at technology adoption in CTE. Since CTE, as a field, requires high many high tech skills, it is critical the CTE teachers adopt technology. The majority of this paper deals with how context and motivation impacts the adoption of technology for educators. While this paper does focus on the career and technical educator, it can be applied to a number of different contexts. This factors that have been identified in the adoption of technology are important to all individuals. The value that this presentation adds to the field, is that it has taken research based findings from a variety of scholarly research journals, compiled them, and describes how this research can be practically applied to a real world setting for the classroom teacher and administrator.

References

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