Investigating faculty decisions to adopt Web 2.0 technologies: Theory and empirical tests

By: Haya Ajjana and Richard Hartshorne

Citation “The Internet and Higher Education, Vol 11, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 71-80”

In 2008, Ajjan and Hartshorne conducted a study at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to determine if there was a relation between teacher behavior and use of Web 2.0 technology in the classroom. The researchers used the decomposed theory of planned behavior as the theoretical foundation for the study. In the study the researchers created a survey to determine the impact of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control of the teachers on their use of Web 2.0 technology in their classroom.

Regarding the attitude of teachers the researchers looked at three components: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and compatibility. Their literature review drew them to the hypothesis that as the ease of use, usefulness, and compatibility increase, the attitude toward using the technology is likely to become more positive.

To decompose teacher subjective norms the researchers asked questions to determine how the teachers felt their superiors, peers and students regarded use of technology in the classroom. Their literature review led them to conclude that while superiors might feel that adopting Web 2.0 technology may improve student's learning or ratings, other faculty might feel that it requires an undesired change in the current process. Regarding students, the researchers believed that they would be more supportive given their high level of self efficacy using Web 2.0 technologies.

With respect to perceived behavioral control the researchers examined self efficacy and facilitating conditions, for example the availability of resources. In this element of the study the researchers felt that a greater self-efficacy to use technological applications on the part of the teacher was likely to lead to higher level of using Web 2.0 technologies. Unfortunately, their research indicated that the absence of facilitating conditions would negatively impact their use of technology.

Ultimately the “purpose of the study was to assess faculty's awareness of the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to supplement the classroom learning and to assess their adoption of such technologies using the decomposed theory of planned behavior as the theoretical foundation.”

The strengths of the article was the simple yet thorough explanation of the study, the justification to use the decomposition theory of planned behavior, and the listing of questions in the survey and their relation to determining the impact of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control.

While I am at a lack to identify weaknesses of the article, they would likely be the opposite perception of the value of simple and concise. Overall the article may be seen to lack depth of analysis and could be sited for not fully developing the theory or theorist whose work they relied upon to form the hypothetical questions and construct the survey.

Given that I am currently not instructing I have few experiences against which to imagine uses of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom other than those we have witnessed Dr Collins use. The researchers in their literature review, however, provided some solid recommendations for the integration of technology into the classroom and I agree with their recommendations.

Their study focused on four types of Web 2.0 collaboration tools: blogs, wikis, social networking, and social bookmarking. Their research indicated that using Web 2.0 technologies was consistent with the constructivist theorists who advocate that learning is a social process and that learning occurs through interactions and sharing information.

In supporting interaction wikis and social networks could supplement in-class instructions by creating an interactive, collaborative learning experience for students. Blogs could be included in researching, tracking, interpreting, and evaluating political commentary, cultural events, business, or other news especially when there is an interest in examining changes over time.

From the individual student perspective wikis could be used to support individualized learning, allowing for more socially defined search structures. From the group perspective the wikis promote collaboration through group editing and peer review.

I was particularly surprised by the idea that educators could use social bookmarking to facilitate collaborative information discovery. Students could create a social bookmarking page to save important pages about a topic. Students could also collaborate on group projects using bookmarking sites, sharing links, and uploading resources discovered, while educators could follow their students bookmark pages to gain insight on their research process and progress