ICT and Schools: Identification of Factors Influencing the Use of New Media in Vocational Training Schools.

In this paper, we analysed teachers’ characteristics described in the literature on classroom media use to identify those factors, which can explain teachers’ use of new media in classrooms with some degree of validity. Using this literature as a basis, in this paper we develop a theoretical model which describes both positive and negative factors, which influence teachers’ use of new media in classrooms. These factors include: “constructivist teaching style”, “willingness to cooperate”, “openness to change“, “lack of ICT-competence”, “lack of time” and “lack of ICT confidence”. We assessed the validity of the model by testing it using data collected from a survey of fifty-two Swiss and Austrian teachers, We carried out Pearson correlations to evaluate whether the factors in the model had a positive or a negative influence on teachers’ classroom media use. The hypothesized correlations between our variables were all statistically significant. Specifically, all six variables were significantly correlated with the dependent variable “use of new media in classrooms”. This result supported our hypothesis concerning positive and negative relationships between variables. In a second, exploratory investigation, we performed OLS regression analysis to investigate, which of the factors in our model are of predictive value with respect to the dependent variable “use of new media in classrooms”. Our findings show that the variable “constructivist teaching style” was of particular explanatory value. This suggests that only teachers who adopt a pupil-oriented, constructivist teaching style are likely to make use of new technology in classrooms. The variable “lack of available time” was identified as a second important factor influencing the “use of new media in classrooms”. This suggests that teachers are not able to make full use of new media when they lack the time needed to prepare teaching material using the new media, since time is also needed for teachers to learn new hardware and software computer skills. The results of this study have a series of important, practical implications.