Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Kelly Clark

Abstract

This dissertation was designed to gather data regarding the self-efficacy beliefs of ninth graders after experiencing the one-to-one technology initiative for 1 school year. The goal was to obtain information based on the experiences of the students in order to enlighten leaders of other schools and districts when implementing their own technology initiatives. Students, teachers, and administrators were all surveyed regarding the initiative and perceived experience. A focus group of eight students was conducted in order to gather more data regarding the answers to the survey questions. After focus group data were interpreted, three student interviews were held to gather more data regarding the needs of the students in order to feel more confident when using technology for educational purposes. The student and teacher surveys reported overall high areas of self-efficacy after 1 year of using mobile devices in their ninth-grade classrooms. The results seem to point to previous experience with the iPads, multiple teacher instruction, and the popularity of Apple products as factors that led to the mostly positive responses regarding self-efficacy. Frustrations, which may have led to decreased levels of self-efficacy, seem to lie in the areas of students’ perceptions of teacher confidence when utilizing the devices in the classroom, not having the appropriate programs to permit (or having restrictions which prevent) maximized learning experiences, and teachers’ lack of consistency when using the iPads in various classes. According to administrators, teachers, and students, in order to make the initiative better, teachers and administrators should have received more training prior to implementation, the rollout procedure needed to be more precise, and students would have liked more paper/pencil assignments to go along with the iPad use.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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