Attitudes towards technology use : an investigation on the perspectives of preservice physical education teachers

• Main Author: Phelps, Ashley Nicole
• Other Authors: Keating, Xiaofen, Harrison, Louis, Navrátil, Paul, Liu, Min
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Attitudes; Technology; Physical education teacher education; Attu
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/2152/86894; https://doi.org/10.26153/tsw/13844

Attitudes are indicative of our behavior on a daily basis. Essentially, our attitudes influence our decision making. As technical developments continue to emerge in education, future teachers, as well as, teacher educators are relied upon to learn about and use various technologies as part of their teaching practice. However, research shows that future physical educators are interested in using technology in their classrooms, but are unable to do so because they either lack the technological pedagogical content knowledge necessary, or they are uncomfortable in their ability to execute instruction with technology. There has been a long-standing paradigm that screen time is unhealthy and that students should avoid technology use, as it may take away from time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. On the other hand, technology can also help us improve our lifestyles to be healthier. To better gauge attitudes towards technology use in the field of physical education, the Technology Acceptance Model was adopted, adapted, and refined from the field of Information Systems to better explore and understand attitudes towards technology use in physical education. The two core variables that influence attitudes towards technology use are perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. These variables then dictate an individual’s behavioral intention to use and ultimately, his/her actual system use of technology. From a preservice physical education teacher (PPET) perspective, the Technology Acceptance Model was used as a conceptual framework to highlight the attitudes towards technology use in physical education. There are two studies. Different participants were involved in each study. In addition, the methods in each study varied. Study 1 focused on the development, reliability, and validity of an attitudes towards technology use scale that could be used in the field of physical education for PPETs. The PPET attitudes towards technology use (ATTU) was validated as a reliable measurement tool upon running an exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach alpha, descriptive statistics, and bivariate correlations. An EFA was conducted on a subsample of 135 PPETs (n = 39 American PPETs; n = 96 Chinese PPETs). All individual items loaded significantly onto each of their constructs (i.e., perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and feelings towards technology). The χ² goodness-of-fit statistic for perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use was significant, χ²(4) = 398.33, p <.001 and χ² goodness-of-fit statistic for feelings towards technology use was also significant, χ²(10) = 355.01, p < .001. A CFA was conducted to confirm the factor structure. Results suggested that the hypothesized model was a good fit for the data, χ²(101) = 179.51, p < .001, NNFI = .95, CFI = .96, SRMR = .05, RMSEA = .07 (90% CI [.057, .094], p = .012). All constructs were correlated with the strongest correlation being between perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (≥|.50|). Curriculum and Instruction