Lutheran School Teachers' Instructional Usage of the Interactive Whiteboard

Abstract

The purpose of this mixed methods study was twofold. First, the study assessed whether Davis' (1989) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was useful in predicting instructional usage of the interactive whiteboard (IWB), as reported by K-8 teachers. Second, the study set out to understand what motivated those teachers to use the IWB for classroom instruction, and to further describe the ways in which they used them. Through surveying 155 teachers and 40 administrators of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) schools, the researcher used multiple regression and moderator analyses to examine whether the TAM model helped explain teachers' reported teacher-centered and student-centered instructional IWB usage. The researcher followed this by one-on-one interviews with 5 of the teachers surveyed. With the data gathered from the interviews and open-ended items from the original surveys, an analysis using qualitative methods was performed. The results from the qualitative analysis were then used to help refine and explain the quantitative findings. The results of the study's quantitative phase indicated two variables adapted from the TAM, teachers' perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of the IWB, contributed to the prediction of teacher-centered instructional usage of the device. Further it was found that the perceived usefulness variable contributed to the prediction of student-centered instructional usage. Moderator analysis indicated the variable for teachers' IWB technological pedagogical content knowledge, adapted from Mishra and Koehler's (2006) technological pedagogical content knowledge framework, moderated the relationships between the variable perceived ease of use of the IWB and teacher and student-centered instructional usage respectively, as well as between the variable perceived usefulness of the IWB and teacher-centered instructional usage. The qualitative phase results revealed those teachers surveyed used their IWBs in a variety of ways for both teacher-centered and student-centered instruction. Teachers frequently reported they were motivated to use the device by its overall user-friendliness and its utility as an instructional tool. Central to the teachers' discussion of its utility were ways in which the tool positively impacted the students during instruction. Specifically how it engaged students by attracting their attention, keeping them focused, and offering them a better way to learn. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone [phone]. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]