An investigation of access and use of electronic data systems by elementary and middle school teachers

This exploratory study focused on assessing the extent elementary and intermediate school teachers used electronic data systems to support their decision-making in the classroom. The study further investigated factors that may be related to teachers’ use of these systems. New York City public elementary and middle school teachers’ survey responses were analyzed to identify patterns of usage of electronic data systems to support educational decision making in relation to their technology skills, time availability, professional development, access to computers, collaboration with colleagues, teachers’ support, age, and longevity of practice. The results of the study reflect that both the ARIS and Acuity databases are underutilized as electronic data systems. The study noted greater use for ARIS in tracking student assessments and for Acuity in differentiating instruction. Furthermore the results show that the least used component in ARIS is the networking portal component, while teachers’ least use of Acuity was for teachers’ reflection on their own practice and using data for their lesson pacing and planning.

In identifying factors that affect the use of electronic data systems, the study found technology skills and professional development to be statistically significant in explaining such use. Teachers’ responses to survey questions and open ended responses also identified additional factors including time, access to working computers, collaboration, and having a data specialist as a support as factors that affect their use of electronic data systems. Although the data systems are utilized to varying degrees one can deduce that overall the systems are still underutilized. The New York City Department of Education will need to invest in supporting teachers’ use of these systems to garner the benefit intended from making these systems available to schools and teachers.