Better Technology Adoption in Schools with the Technology Acceptance Model
Technology Acceptance Model helps us design and implement better tech initiatives
Everybody knows that technology will play a major role in the future of education. And yet, for a variety of reasons, technology adoption has been happening way too slowly in Indian schools.
I came across this interesting paper (Ucha, 2023) related to Technology (MOOC) Acceptance which came out this month.
This led me to the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a model considered to be a credible way to assess technology use in education (among other contexts). Read more in this paper: Technology acceptance model in educational context: A systematic literature review (Granić & Marangunić, 2019)
Here are some of my takeaways:
1. The technology acceptance model
What it is:
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is a way to understand why people embrace or reject new technologies.
It suggests that
if a technology is perceived as easy to use (perceived ease of use)
and if it's believed that using it will help achieve desired goals (perceived usefulness),
then people are more likely to accept (intention to use) and use that technology (actual use).
In simple terms, if a technology seems easy and helpful, people are more likely to adopt it.
Why it is useful:
A technological innovation can only have its intended impact, if people actually use the technology.
Tech innovation → Tech usage → Impact
Tech innovation → No usage → No impact
Digital transformation in schools cannot happen without technological usage.
TAM helps predict how likely someone is to use a new gadget, app, or system based on two simple factors - ease of use and usefulness.
Understanding what influences adoption can help us design smarter systems for technology implementation.
Educational research has shown that TAM is a ‘leading scientific paradigm and credible model for facilitating assessment of diverse technological deployments in educational context’ (Granić & Marangunić, 2019).
How can we do this?
In a previous blog post I had written about systems level initiatives that can be put in place to increase acceptance and adoption.
You will notice that I have suggested processes that help teams better perceived usefulness and ease of use:
Perceived Usefulness
Vision: Strong Vision and Communication that clearly shows the benefits of the technology to different stakeholders
Proof of Usefulness: Amplifying the work of early adopters, as proof of usefulness to others for greater buy-in
Perceived Ease of Use
Training: Planning for Strong just-in-time training for the team along with the vision building
Peer Support: Providing opportunities for the early adopters to share their work and support others on the team
2. Extending Technology Acceptance Model (TAM): Influence of Relevance and Content Quality in MOOCs
The usage of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for learning has been amazing yet underwhelming. Personally, MOOCs changed my life between 2013 - 2018 as I moved from teaching roles into leadership ones. I relied heavily on them for guidance. This guidance came from some of the best leadership and educational experts in the world. And as a poor reader at that time, the video format worked in my favour.
So the question of why MOOC usage didn’t explode always intrigues me.
The paper that led me to the TAM, extends TAM by investigating the influence of more specific factors of e-learning on TAM. Below is a short description of what I found.
What it says:
TAM holds strong:
The TAM model was validated i.e. if a technology seems easy and helpful, people are more likely to adopt it.
They found that Perceived usefulness and Perceived ease of use influences intention to use (behavioural intention) and actual usage
Usefulness of the MOOC is influenced by our learner needs
This study found that users will consider how relevant and useful the course is based on their individual needs, and this influences their perceived usefulness of the course.
Ease of use of the MOOC is influenced by Content Quality
This study found that users will consider how relevant and useful the course is based on their individual needs, and this influences their perceived usefulness of the course.
Additional factors that were measured:
Instructor Quality, Design Quality, Learner-Instructor interaction and Learner-Learner Interaction were measured because prior research has shown that these can influence perceptions of usefulness/ ease of use. However strong correlations were not found for these factors in this study.
Why it is useful:
We can use this information to design online courses for greater adoption/ usage.
How can we do this?
Course Relevance: Help users understand if your course is relevant to them by…
Communicating objectives clearly
Providing details on how this course can help students meet their future academic/ job-related goals
Designing courses that help users build a portfolio during the course that can actual be used later on for applications to study/ jobs
Course Content Quality: Ensure that the learning is of good quality by…
Establishing clear learning objectives, organisation of content, explicit instruction, practice (invest in a good instructional designer if feasible)
Providing content that captures attention and is enjoyable (use story-telling, examples, multimedia)
Designing content that is easy to follow (invest in good UI/UX experiences if feasible)
I intend on using this Technology Acceptance Model extensively to guide my thinking. I hope you found it useful too!