Understanding the Adoption of a Student Response System From an Integrated Approach

The purpose of this study is to explore teacher usage and student attitude on student response system with emphasis on integration of information and communication technology (ICT) with pedagogy and subject content. Most research explains the intentions to adopt new information technologies in higher education settings with the vocabulary of technology acceptance, such as ease of use and usefulness of an innovation (Davis, 1989; Marchewka and Kostiwa, 2014; Lin, Lu and Liu, 2013), but not many employ an integrated approach incorporating other important parameters of education. This study investigates the relationships among technological-pedagogical-content knowledge (TPACK) (Mishra & Koehler, 2006; Koehler & Mishra, 2009), teacher usage and student attitude on SRS. TPACK, a term first coined by Mishra and Koehler (2006), is a framework underscoring the interaction of technology, pedagogy and content knowledge in education. Previous study demonstrated there is a significant difference between technological-pedagogical knowledge competencies and usage level of ICT (Yurdakul, 2011). Adopting the TPACK framework, the current study determines the parameters of technological-pedagogical-content knowledge that contribute to the successful integration of SRS in tertiary education. The participants of the current study consist of 18 teachers and 553 students from various disciplines at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. The 34 items on competencies of technological-pedagogical-content knowledge were adapted from the TPACK survey developed by Schmidt et al. (2009). Teacher usage on SRS were obtained from the session files of SRS implementation, whereas student behavioral intention on using SRS were collected and summarized from the self-report student survey launched on the Learning Management System (LMS). Pearson's correlation analysis reveals that technological knowledge was positively correlated with the actual usage of SRS. Teachers who were more competent in technology adopted SRS more frequently in their classes. Furthermore, findings supported the hypothesis on the associations among technological-pedagogical-content knowledge and student attitude of using SRS. Results of the independent sample t-test suggested that students in classes of teachers with high levels of technological-pedagogical-content knowledge would like to use SRS more. Findings in the current study suggested that to promote SRS in university settings, besides enhancing technological knowledge of teachers, various aspects of technological-pedagogical-content knowledge need to be determined. The competencies of integrating technology, pedagogy and subject contents are all important components for the successful implementation of SRS in university.