Preservice Teachers’ Risk Perceptions and Willingness to Use Educational Technologies: A Belief System Approach

Abstract

One of the beliefs that is responsible for teachers' resistance to educationa l technologies (Ets) is risk perceptions. Risk psychology scholars describe risk perception as people's informal estimation of the probability of an event happening combined with an evaluation of how concerned they would be about the negative consequences of such an incident. About the nature of risk perceptions, three theoretical explanations have been put forwarded: cultural theory, affect heuristic and psychometric paradigm. Because cultural theory has limited predictive power in the empirical research a nd because affect heuristic not only covers risks but also contains benefits, we focus mainly on psychometric paradigm in the present study. The psychometric paradigm emphasizes that risk is a combination of many factors such as knowledge, dread, control, catastrophic potential, equity, voluntariness and tamper with the nature. The purpose of present study was to understand the predictive power of risk perceptions for pre-service teachers (PTs)' willingness to use Ets. We developed a questionnaire covering three sections: personal information, willingness to use Ets and risk perceptions. We administered this questionnaire to 425 Turkish PTs from different backgrounds (STEM and non-STEM branches). We benefited from factor analysis and hierarchical regression for data analyses. The results of factor analyze showed that six dimensions (dread, unnatural consequences, negative impacts on learning, noneducational purposes, traditional education and first-time use) constituted the PTs' risk perceptions. The regression results showed that certain risk perception dimensions were predictors of willingness to use Ets. At the end of the paper, we suggested implications based on enhancement strategies for teacher epistemology and risk mitigation opportunities.

Educators’ perceptions of technology integration into the classroom: a descriptive case study

“…The doubt causes them to question the change and their belief system. Past experiences may also influence educators’ ability to be successful with the implementation of a new innovation, such as technology (Demirbağ and Kılınç, 2018; Reid, 2017). If the focus of the change contradicts the current belief system, teachers are less likely to put the reforms into practice; therefore, they become resistant to the change.…”

“…If the focus of the change contradicts the current belief system, teachers are less likely to put the reforms into practice; therefore, they become resistant to the change. Changes that align with core beliefs are more likely to be successful (Demirbağ and Kılınç, 2018). The alignment allows teachers to feel confident about the change process and more likely to be a user of technology.…”

“…Educators produce resistance by using the technology superficially or not at all. The resistance builds when the educational technology seemingly does not contribute to their traditional teaching (Demirbağ and Kılınç, 2018). Educators may perceive learning to use the newly adopted technology as a burden (Cheung et al , 2018).…”

Risk Analysis and Risk Perception among Malaysian Caregivers: A Qualitative Study

“…It is because less experienced caregivers usually have inadequate professional experience in estimating and controlling child health and safety risks (Connolly & Haughton, 2017). Moreover, what they thought to be safe may turn out otherwise due to faulty risk perception and optimism bias, that is, the belief that negative events are less likely to happen to them (Demirbag & Kilinc, 2018;Hogan et al, 2018;Siegrist & Arvai, 2020). In a different vein, caregivers could have developed a fatalistic belief that a perceived child's health and safety are beyond one's control but depend on chance, fate, luck, and God per se (Ngueutsa & Kouabenan, 2017).…”

Interprofessional collaboration (or lack thereof) between faculty and learning technologists in the creation of digital learning

“…Teaching in the online environment requires different competencies from those in the face-to-face environment, particularly in the areas of technology, facilitation and engagement [ 12 – 14 ]. However, studies suggest that educators are not always willing to adopt digital tools [ 15 ], seeing them merely as burdensome rather than helpful [ 16 ], and may feel under-equipped to navigate digital tools due to perceived lack of technical knowledge and time to acquire the necessary skills and institutional support [ 17 , 18 ].…”