Moderating effect of Social Media Usage on Technology Barriers to Technology Adoption by Teachers

Abstract

The education and learning process is redefined with the mesmerizing impact of ever-volatile technology platforms. With the advent of the Industry 4.0, supported by the intelligent web 3.0 connectivity catalyzed the transformation of traditional education philosophies and pedagogies in tune with the Learning 4.0, to empower both learners and educators as co-producers of knowledge. The researches brought to light that social application platforms became an indispensable part of the digital learning process. The bio-inspired technology designs considerably cast off the issues related to ease of use, perceived usefulness, and reduced the perceived internal barriers of the teachers to improve their Technology Adoption substantially. This Technology Adoption research was conducted under the theoretical framework of the ‘education change model’ of Michael Fullan integrated with educators’ Communities of Practice. This descriptive research study framed to address how the teachers’ Technology Adoption was affected by their use of social media platforms and how it moderated their perceived Technology Barriers. Standardized questionnaires from Joe W. Kotrlik and Donna H. Redmann were adopted with a pilot study. Stratified cluster sampling was used to gather 1029 responses from Higher Secondary School teachers of six educational districts in Kerala. The analysis was done with IBM SPSS v.21 and Process v.3.4. Teachers’ Social Media Use and Perceived Technology Barriers were significantly correlated with the Technology Adoption of the teachers. The perceived Technology Barriers were reduced with respect to their Social Media Usage. The relation of perceived Technology Barriers with Technology Adoption was significantly moderated with Social Media Use. Gender and school sectors were neither mediated nor moderated Technology Adoption. These results are helpful in the teachers' technology training programs and for further research.