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Why does technology integration fail? Teacher beliefs and content developer assumptions in an Indian initiative

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Abstract

This paper explores technology integration and the role of teacher beliefs in this integration to assess a ‘smart-class’ initiative that was introduced in 3173 Grade 7–8 classrooms of 1609 public schools in India in 2017. It first reports on the impact of the initiative at the end of its first year, using a sample of 2574 children drawn from 155 project schools and 155 non-project schools. A two-level multivariate analysis did not indicate any significant effect of the project on student subject knowledge, attitude towards subject and subject self-efficacy beliefs. A follow-up interpretive study that used the open-ended responses of 170 project teachers and four in-depth case studies revealed that the e-content supplied supported some traditional beliefs of teachers while challenging others; the latter, however, led to resistance that hindered learning processes. Thus, both support and challenge seem to have led to a reproduction of the traditional classroom, resulting in no significant differences in outcomes between project and non-project classrooms. The paper calls for greater awareness among content developers of how their beliefs can subvert technology integration, and for supportive professional development of teachers that will help them incorporate technology in their pedagogical practice.

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Notes

  1. KBC refers to ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati’, an Indian television quiz show modeled on the British ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’. Participants answer a series of questions, and win a cash prize if they answer all the questions correctly.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Avinash Bhandari, Megha Gajjar, Lalji Nakhrani, Sanket Savaliya, Nishanshi Shukla and Niroopa Khokar for their field work assistance.

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  1. Ravi J. Matthai Centre for Educational Innovation, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad, 380015, India

    Vijaya Sherry Chand, Ketan Satish Deshmukh & Anurag Shukla

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  1. Vijaya Sherry Chand
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Permission for the study was granted by the provincial government (SSA/TT/2018, dated March 22, 2018), which arranged for all school-level permissions, and communicated the purpose and procedures of the study to the heads of the selected schools, the selected teachers and administrators. The students who responded to the surveys were briefed by their teachers and the administrators and then invited to participate in the study. The participation of the schools, teachers and children in the study was optional, but no school, teacher or child refused to participate. The data used for the analysis is available at https://www.inshodh.org/sci-data-set.

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Chand, V.S., Deshmukh, K.S. & Shukla, A. Why does technology integration fail? Teacher beliefs and content developer assumptions in an Indian initiative. Education Tech Research Dev 68, 2753–2774 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09760-x

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