Kyllönen, M. (2020) Use and acceptance of technology: Teachers’ digipedagogical skills [Doctoral dissertation, University of Jyväskylä]. Jyväskylä University Digital Repository. https://jyx.jyu.fi/handle/123456789/67585

Abstract:

“The aims of the thesis were to examine Finnish teachers’ digipedagogical skills and to identify factors contributing to teachers’ development in these skills, and their acceptance of use of technology in pedagogy. The data were collected in the context of crafts. Two theoretical models, the Technological-pedagogical-content knowledge framework, TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006), and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, UTAUT (Venkatesh et al., 2003) were applied. TPACK model was used as the theoretical framework for conceptualizing and assessing teachers’ digipedagogical skills, and UTAUT was utilized in analysing factors enabling teachers’ technology use. A mixed methods approach was utilized. First, quantitative data were collected on teachers’ digipedagogical skills using a TPACK-survey (n=97). Second, semi-structured thematic interviews of five teachers were collected in the preand post-phase of a professional development (PD) module. Technological skills (TK), pedagogical skills (PK), content related skills (CK), and the overlapping area of TPCK formed the focus of scrutiny when examining teachers’ perceptions of their technology use and factors affecting it. The analysis of the interview data was theoretically driven by utlilising the constructs outlined in the UTAUT model (Venkatesh et al., 2003). The results of the research suggested that in-service teachers’ perceptions of their use of technology emphasized more strongly pedagogy than technology or technology related contents. Digipedagogical skills were connected with teachers’ age, work-, teaching- and crafts teaching experience. Enablers of technology acceptance and enablers of technology use were identified. Acceptance was found to draw from perceived technological self-efficacy and beliefs of pedagogical usefulness of technology. Enablers of technology use included technical or personal support from others such as employer or family for an example. Based on the findings a novel pedagogy driven model was constructed. The developed model of Digipedagogical skills and enablers of use and acceptance of the technology and the results can be used to plan and implement teachers’ preand in-service training promoting strengthening of digipedagogical skills.”