The Impact of Faculty Attitudes Toward Technology, Distance Education, and Innovation

Abstract

Distance education plays an important role in broadening educational access and increasing higher educational opportunities. The success, however, for any distance education initiative relies on a critical and core resource, namely having participating faculty who provide quality instruction. This study uses survey design and diffusion of innovation theory to examine faculty participation in relation to their technology use, their attitudes toward technology and distance education, and their adoption of innovations at a public postsecondary 10-campus system. Ordinal regression analysis identified 20 significant variables (16 predictors representing the four latent dimensions of the conceptual model and four demographic characteristics) that explain faculty participation in distance education. The findings identify a number of core issues underlying faculty participation and non-participation in distance education which pose implications for policy and practice relevant to technology use and skills, training and development, course design and technical support, quality issues, and workload and compensation.

Course Management System’s Compatibility with Teaching Style Influences Willingness to Complete Training

“…Rather, it has focused on how it affects faculty member willingness to use IT. The results of this research are consistent with studies conducted by Tabata and Johnsrud (2008) and Wang (2009). These studies found no significant relationship between faculty adoption of IT and complexity perceptions.…”

“…For example, Aremu et al (2013) and Sayadian et al (2009) found that relative advantage positively impacts faculty IT adoption, and Bennett and Bennet's (2003) research suggested that relative advantage positively influences faculty training program effectiveness. Conversely, Tabata and Johnsrud (2008) found an association between relative advantage and a decreased use of new technology practices. According to Tabata and Johnsrud, this may be because while faculty members perceive that distance education affords a relative advantage over current approaches, they do not believe that distance education instruction coincides with their responsibilities, needs, or values.…”

“…The findings of this study are generally consistent with the findings of other researchers. For instance, Tabata and Johnsrud (2008) found that if faculty members believe that distance education is compatible with their working styles then they are likelier to instruct distance education classes, and Sayadian et al's (2009) results suggested that if faculty members perceive that web-based instruction is consistent with their values and teaching methods then they are more disposed to integrating web-based instruction in their courses. Also, Tornatzky and Klein (1982), who studied general IT adoption, found that compatibility perceptions delivered one of the most constant, significant, positive associations within a large variety of innovation categories.…”

“…For example, Sayadian et al (2009) suggested that faculty perceptions of trialability positively affects their incorporation of online instruction. Bennett and Bennett (2003) asserted that faculty members should be permitted to try IT in order to foster use, and Tabata and Johnsrud (2008) found that permitting faculty members to try instructional technology increased their adoption of it in distance education. It may be that trialability of the Blackboard CMS at FSU is not as critical to faculty because it has become much easier to edit courses in Blackboard.…”

Posibilidades para el uso del modelo de aceptación de la tecnología (TAM) y de la teoría de los marcos tecnológicos para evaluar la aceptación de nuevas tecnologías para el aseguramiento de la calidad en la educación superior chilena

“…Como en muchas otras áreas de la vida moderna, la tecnología ha tenido un importante impacto en la educación superior (Meister, 1999) y, a pesar de que es obvio que esta ha experimentado fuertes y sin precedentes desafíos a partir del impacto de las tecnologías de la información -que afecta una multiplicidad de actividades y funciones institucionales (Tabata y Johnsrud, 2008)-, existe escasa evidencia acerca de cómo se relacionan estos cambios y las percepciones en torno a ellos, con la gestión del aseguramiento de la calidad.…”