Modeling diffusion of ICT as an innovation among inter influencing potential adopters in an educational system

Abstract

Using Internet and Communication Technologies (ICT) to improve the teaching-learning process is a disruptive innovation which holds great potential for changing the education scenario in India. The main aim of the study is to explore the dynamics of ICT adoption by potential-adopter teachers and students in the context of both School and Higher education and extend the [147] Diffusion of Innovation model to account for the inter-influence among the interacting potential adopters. When inter-influence plays a key role in the diffusion of innovation, the adoption decisions of a teacher/student often goes beyond their own decisions. We posit that a teacher s adoption decision comes not only from her own experiences but also from student s influence. Likewise the students adoption decisions are influenced by the teachers perceptions of the innovation. First, I focused on potential-adopter teachers both in the context of school and higher education. For the school segment we have modelled the evolution of the potential-adopter teachers as a dynamic system by incorporating the teacher s training program which emerged as the dominant factor influencing innovation adoption from the empirical study carried out. For the higher education segment, we focused on potential-adopter teachers perception of critical mass and ranked innovation attributes like Relative Advantage, Ease of Use, Perceived Enjoyment and Department Support as dominant factors to adopt ICT innovation. Second, I looked at potential-adopter students attitudes and perceptions towards ICT as an innovation. Using [147][148], here I investigated student perceptions of tabletop as an ICT innovation in a secondary school context. Empirical results show that DOI theory operationalized in this study was successful in predicting adoption of tabletop for learning by students. The results of this analysis indicated that attributes like Relative advantage, Compatibility, Ease of Use, Perceived Enjoyment, Perceived Usefulness were found to be positively related ....