VIDRIOS BIOACTIVOS DE BASE FOSFATO

Most previous researchers have used quantitative methods to study the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM); however, a few studies have applied a mixed-methods approach. I used a mixed- methods approach to analyze quantitative and qualitative data in order to study the research questions in the Acceptance Study as discussed above. The cross-checking approach of the questionnaire and interviews allowed for a thorough understanding of the why, how, and what reasons that influence teachers’ acceptance of the portals.

In the Acceptance Study, I included two parts of the survey to answer RQ2 and its related sub-research questions. The first part of the Acceptance Study, the Acceptance Study-1, is the Acceptance Survey that consisted of an online questionnaire (Acceptance Survey Questionnaire) and a one-on-one interview (Acceptance Survey Interview) to collect data related to teachers’ acceptance and interface questions concerning educational portals. Thus, in order to have completed the first part of the Acceptance Study, the participants must have finished the Acceptance Survey Questionnaire and Acceptance Survey Interview. The purpose of the Acceptance Survey Questionnaire was to broadly understand K-12 teachers’ attitudes, feelings, and prior experience in using educational portals (see Appendix B). The Acceptance Survey Interview took a holistic perspective to further and deepen this study’s understanding of the teachers’ feelings, opinions, experiences of dealing with educational portals, and considerations of interface design of the portals (see Appendix C).

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The second part of the Acceptance Study, the Acceptance Study-2, is the Self-efficacy Interview that explored Teachers’ Computer Self-efficacy with a semi-structured interview. It also was conducted to specifically explore the relationship of teachers’ self-beliefs to their computer capabilities (see Appendix D for the structure of the interview). Thus, the Self-efficacy Interview aimed to get more effective information about whether teachers’ feelings, thoughts and motivations (teachers’ computer self-efficacy) influence their acceptance of educational portals as information resources. Thus, the data-collection methods of the Acceptance Study are the Acceptance Survey Questionnaire, the Acceptance Survey Interview and Self-efficacy Interview.

(1) The Acceptance Survey Questionnaire:

The Acceptance Survey Questionnaire first collected data pertaining to the K-12 teachers’ background in Q1 to Q6. They are used in general research studies to identify the participants’ basic demographic information including gender, age, highest degree earned, and teaching experience based on guidelines from the National Center for Education Information [NCEI] (Feistritzer, 2011). To understand more about K-12 teachers, I then collected information about their technological experience (i.e. internet access, computer capabilities, previous experience of using ICT – using online engines, any educational portals, and EAGLE) to investigate whether these variables affected participants’ acceptance and actual usage of educational portals. The results of these questions were to answer the RQ2-1. In addition, the teachers needed to provide short answers about the benefits of using online search engines and educational portals in order to understand why participants use online search engines and educational portals to seek information (or why not). These were Q7 to Q12, Q15 and Q17 in the questionnaire.

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The second part of the Acceptance Survey Questionnaire merge concepts from the literature and from Davis's (1993) TAM survey to design my survey relating teachers’ use of educational portals to K-12 teachers’ Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease Of Use when using education portals. These questions were designed to collect independent data sets to understand K-12 teachers’ Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease Of Use when they use educational portals to seek information resources (see Appendix B – Part II: Question 13 to14).

The Acceptance Survey Questionnaire also collected responses to understand the participants’ information-seeking behavior and their perceptions of interface design from the five educational portals that are identified below. The Q16 and Q18 were the questions that addressed

RQ2-3 that related to information-seeking behavior and to examine whether K-12 teachers’

information-seeking behavior on a specific portal, EAGLE, was different from that with other general educational portals.

In the Factor Study, the results showed that teachers were concerned with educational portals’ interface design. The Q19 to Q24 was designed to understand thoroughly whether interface design would be important to assist teachers’ acceptance of educational portals. These questions were designed to answer RQ2-4 that included a comparison of components from five educational portals’ system interface designs to scrutinize what system interface features K-12 teachers were most concerned with and may enhance their attitudes toward using educational portals. The Five portals used are EAGLE (http://www.eagle.pitt.edu/), Asia for Educators (http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/), American Memory (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html), and Pennsylvania Standards Aligned System (http://www.pdesas.org/), and the History World (http://www.historyworld.net/). The four additional educational portals came from the participants in my Factor Study when I requested that they recommend a general educational

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portal to be used as a comparison to EAGLE. The questions asked K-12 teachers to evaluate sixteen features from the four educational portals that weren’t provided by EAGLE. Thus, the participants were requested to evaluate EAGLE’s system interface, to rate the importance of four other portals’ features, and then if possible, to list what should be improved in these portals’ features.

The format of the questions on the Acceptance Survey Questionnaire was similar to the Factor Survey that was created by Qualtrics survey system with multiple-choice questions (allowing single or multiple selections) with a 4-point Likert scale and short answers questions to broadly understand K-12 teachers’ attitudes and prior experience with educational portals. Also, to preclude equivocal responses from the participants, I have used even numbers (a 4-point Likert scale) instead of odd number of possible responses to prevent the participants from choosing neutral choices. As DeVellis (2003) has indicated, “An odd number implies a central ‘neutral’ point …. An even number of responses, on the other hand, forces the respondent to make at least a weak commitment in the direction of one or the other extreme” (p. 77).

There are 87 items (24 questions and their sub-questions) included on the online questionnaire that consisted of three parts – teachers’ background and prior experience with technology, teachers’ perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of educational portals (adapted from Davis's TAM survey), and questions related to interface design and content quality (See Appendix B for the entire Acceptance Questionnaire).

(2) The Acceptance Survey Interview

The purpose of the Acceptance Survey Interview in this dissertation is to elicit the facts as to why K-12 teachers use (or do not use) educational portals to seek information resources

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when preparing their lessons, and whether the system interface and content quality provided will affect K-12 teachers’ decisions to adopt the portals. It lasted around one hour and was voice- recorded, and teachers were able to make sketches and/or take notes during the interview.

In order to get more meaningful information from the participants, the Acceptance Survey Interview included 12 questions (see Appendix C) to answer RQ2-2 and to support RQ2-

4 and RQ2-5. The participants had the opportunity to give their experiences in using any kind of

educational portals and a specific portal, EAGLE. In the general educational portals (Q7 to Q9), they had to answer three questions: (1) What are the major reasons for K-12 teachers to use or not to use educational portals; (2) What are user-friendly aspects of educational portals for teachers when searching for resources on the portals; (3) What kind of educational portals can be said to have a well-organized design when seeking information resources on the portals. In a specific educational portal (Q10 to Q12), EAGLE, the participants only focused on their experience in using EAGLE (http://www.eagle.pitt.edu/) in order to comprehensively understand what functions actually affect K-12 teachers’ acceptance of educational portals as follows: (1) Why do you use EAGLE; (2) As a teacher, would you consider EAGLE to be a useful portal for you to seek information from to support your teaching or why not; (3) Would you consider EAGLE to be a user-friendly and well-organized portal to find resources for your teaching or why not?

The Acceptance Survey Interview included 12 questions that lasted around one hour, it was voice-recorded and teachers were able to contribute notes and sketches during the interview.

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The Acceptance Study-2 is composed of a Self-efficacy Interview that was designed to cross check the results from RQ2-2 and to answer RQ2-5. According to the literature review (see literature review 2.1.2) and the Factor Study results, teachers’ confidence and belief in their ability to perform computer tasks influence them to use educational portals as information resources when preparing lessons. However, the importance of Teachers’ Computer Self- Efficacy (TCS) was unclear in the Acceptance Study-1; therefore, the Acceptance Study-2 focused on TCS to ask participants to self-report their Teachers’ Computer Self-Efficacy to thoroughly investigate teachers’ beliefs/confidence in their computer capability and how teachers’ beliefs/confidence influences their capability to seek information from educational portals as information resources.

The Self-efficacy Interview was created with ideas from Compeau and Higgins (1995) to measure three dimensions of computer self-efficacy – Strength, Generalizability, and Magnitude (see Appendix D for the interview questions) in order to completely investigate K-12 Teachers’ Computer Self-Efficacy (TCS). In other words, the questions of TCS concerned how teachers’ judgment on their beliefs/confidence in using computers and Internet technology influence their lesson preparation. The details of these dimensions are as follows: (1)Teachers’ Computer Self- Efficacy Strength (TCSS) – to measure teachers’ confidence/belief/feelings – whether they feel confident or, conversely, feel anxiety, stress, etc. when performing computer technological tasks; (2) Teachers’ Computer Self-Efficacy Generalizability (TCSG) – to assess whether a teacher believes he/she has the ability to use different domains of computer technology and/or willingness to use a new system; and (3) Teachers’ Computer Self-Efficacy Magnitude (TCSM)

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– to judge whether a teacher believes he/she has the capability to accomplish difficult computer tasks. Q1 to Q7 were designed to answer Teachers’ Computer Self-Efficacy Strength, Q8_1, Q_1, and Q10 were designed to answer Teachers’ Computer Self-Efficacy Generalizability, and Q8_2, Q9_2 and Q11 Teachers’ Computer Self-Efficacy Magnitude. The Self-efficacy Interview included 11 questions with a semi-structured interview that also lasted around one hour with voice-recorded and teachers were able to contribute their notes during the interview.