GBOMITA, VICTOR KWASI AMEDOME; EDD
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY, 1994
EDUCATION, BUSINESS (0688); EDUCATION, TECHNOLOGY (0710); EDUCATION, VOCATIONAL
(0747)
The phenomenon of perpetual change in the human society requires a constant
responsive modification
of human behavior to restore the state of equilibrium. In the search efforts
for a means to facilitate the
return to the status quo Everett M. Rogers suggested the diffusion model of
the theory of adoption of
innovations. Primarily, the diffusion model suggests that innovations, including
technological ideas and
practices perceived as new, must be communicated to be adopted. Implied in the
theory is that the
adoption of innovations fulfills a felt need to redress some inadequacy. Hence,
there is a need to adopt.
Today, the pervasive influence of advancing technology in the society frequently
creates that sense of
insufficiency and demands that the society adopts the new technologies and,
thus, the new methods of
performing human activities. Education and educators, as part of the larger
society, must decide to make
the requisite changes in their behavior, including the way instruction is delivered,
in order to achieve the
mission of education efficiently and effectively. The present study attempted
to identify how business
education teachers, as a subset of all educators, have fulfilled this responsibility
by adopting the most
innovative technology in education, the microcomputer, for delivering instruction.
The findings indicate
that Pennsylvania business education teachers are currently using the microcomputer
for delivering
instruction and also have a positive attitude towards its use in the classroom.
It is apparent that, in terms of
Rogers' adoption model, Pennsylvania business education teachers are at the
last stage of the decision
making process; hence, they seek information to enable them to internalize the
adoption decision they
have previously made to use the microcomputer routinely for delivering instruction.
Three social system
variables, compatibility, number of students in school, and school characteristics,
indicated a weak
relationship with adoption behavior, each providing a low measure for predicting
adoption behavior and
explaining only a small portion of the variance in the adoption behavior. It
was concluded that business
education teachers have a favorable attitude towards the microcomputer innovation
and are well
advanced on the adoption scale. Furthermore, it appears the selected social
system variables are not
good predictors of adoption and little in the variance in adoption behavior
can be explained by the
selected external and internal social system factors.
Social
Systems Simulation Group
P.O. Box 6904 San Diego, CA 92166-0904 Roland Werner, Principal Phone/FAX (619) 660-1603 |