The Role of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in Developing Turkish Pre-Service EFL Teachers’ Technology Adoption

Abstract

As 21st century has witnessed drastic changes in educational technology, the education of pre-service teachers has gained more significance. Educators are then sought to be digitally literate who are also accepting new technologies to utilize web tools competently. That said, this current quantitative driven-mix method research scrutinizes the role of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in enhancing the pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ technology adoption in this changing educational landscape. Accordingly, an online questionnaire together with structured interview are used to gather data from 94 pre-service EFL teachers at a public university in Türkiye due to the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic during 2020-21 academic year. Quantitative data are analyzed through SPSS 27.0 to detect construct-dependent and -independent frequency levels whereas qualitative data are analyzed in lieu of grounded theory by means of thematic analysis. As a result of the quantitative data analysis, it is revealed that the Turkish pre-service EFL teachers’ levels of technology acceptance are moderately high, albeit there is no significant difference regarding age, gender, and personal computer ownership. On the other hand, qualitative data results provide a deeper insight into participants’ perceptions on related concepts. The results are mainly noted as the growing need for modifications in teacher education programs in order to familiarize more with technology and web tools as well as to improve their future technology-integrated language teaching practices.