TEACHER PARTICIPANTS

Stages of Technology

The teachers who participated in the Urban Dreams project during the second year were asked to volunteer for interviews (N=22) conducted midway through the second year of the project.  A general survey of 63 teachers was conducted during the first year of the project (1999-2000).  This data is available in the First Year Report.  Although the projec participants interviewed during the second year were not necessarily a part of the original sample of teachers, it was felt that a comparison between the two groups would be useful.  The teachers who completed the second year interviews (N=22) reported similar stages of technological proficiency to the original first year baseline group (N=63).

In the first year, a survey was conducted with sixty-one English and social studies teachers from 10 high schools.  In that survey, over half of the responding teachers (N=63) felt they were at least somewhat adept at technology usage.  Teachers who participated in the project during the second year (N=22) were again asked to rate the degree of their adoption of technology by selecting one of six descriptive stages.  Figure 1 demonstrates that the participants who were interviewed in the second year of the project (N=22) were adept in technology usage as well.  Sixty-three% ranked themselves in the higher three stages of technology adoption.  

Figure 1.  Stages from 2nd Year teacher interview question 12: (N=22)

Comparisons between the first and second year respondents indicate that none of the second year interviewees considered themselves at the "awareness" stage.  As Figure 2 demonstrates, the majority of teachers from the first year survey (68%) ranked themselves in the higher three stages of technology adoption and 10% felt they were at stage one, awareness.  Due to the additional technology training, support, and resources, it would be expected that teachers participating in the Urban Dreams Project would have reported themselves as beyond that awareness stage.

Figure 2.  Stages from 1st Year teacher survey (First Year Report) question 16: (N=63; Did Not Respond=13)

Figure 3.  Comparison of the percentage of teachers at various stages of application between the first year and second year survey and interview respondents.

© Copyright 2001 Center for Evaluation and Research, LL