The Influence of Organizational Culture on Technology Integration in Teacher Education

Abstract

This study examines the technology integration practices of post-secondary math teacher educators. Four math teacher educators in the Commonwealth of Virginia were interviewed and observed teaching to form a picture of how they have developed as technology users, and identify the factors that have promoted or inhibited their adoption of technological innovations. Organizational culture theory and symbolic interactionism make up the conceptual framework used to identify the participants as individual members of a larger organization who interact to define the technological cultures at their institutions. Analytic induction is used to generate and support a main empirical assertion about the technology adoption practices of these math teacher educators. Results of the study suggest that technology integration by math teacher educators in a school of education is a social process that must have administrative and institutional support to succeed. ********** There is an oft-repeated expression in education that people tend to teach the way they were taught (Bull & Cooper, 1997; Handler, 1993). Professors who work in teacher education prepare those who will be responsible for the education of future generations. Handler (1993) emphasized this point: Consider that the students who are graduating from teacher training programs throughout the United States will be in classrooms, impacting on students, for the next 30 years (p. 147). If students emulate the practice of their teachers, then preservice teachers' use of technology in education will be based, in large part, on the examples set for them in university teacher education programs. This means that the role of the teacher educator in technology integration in schools is vital. The impact they can have on preservice teachers is significant, and maximizing that impact can help improve the integration of technology in K-12 classrooms. The technology integration model that classroom teachers follow in their own practice directly affects how they use technology with their elementary and secondary students. Thus, focusing on teacher educators and models of technology integration is important for understanding and shaping what happens in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to investigate the beliefs and practices of math teacher educators in the area of technology integration. An examination of the factors that have promoted or inhibited the use of technology in teacher educators' careers adds to the understanding of how they decide to adopt or reject technological innovations, how they use technology in teacher education programs, and how to best structure attempts to change their practice by promoting the integration of technology in their teaching. While the unit of analysis for the study is the individual math teacher educator at each of four universities, the conceptual framework emphasizes the need to look beyond the individual educator to their larger organizations, and to examine how their interaction with other members affects their technology integration practices. The literature on innovation diffusion in organizations points to a difference between adoption by organizations and by individuals, because often it is not possible for an individual to adopt an innovation until it has first been adopted by the larger organization (Rogers, 1995). As with individuals, however, the innovation-decision process in organizations tends to occur in a series of stages. The initiation phase, leading up to the decision to adopt or reject an innovation, consists of identifying organizational problems that can be addressed through adoption, and then matching those problems up with potential innovations. Once the adoption decision is made, implementation occurs. During this phase, the innovation is modified to fit the organizational structure and procedures, and is gradually incorporated until it is no longer innovative (Gross, Giacquinta, & Bernstein, 1971; Huff & Dickson, 1991; Rogers, 1995). …