An Exploratory Study of Adoption of Software and Hardware by Faculty in the Liberal Arts and Sciences

Abstract

Universities and colleges are investing millions of dollars in information technology infrastructure to support teaching, research, and service, and thousands of dollars annually in faculty training programs. And yet, many college graduates entering the workforce lack adequate technology skills. To ascertain the frequency of faculty adoption of information technology, we surveyed a random sample of faculty in the liberal arts and sciences departments in our university. Overall faculty members ( n = 174) reported a low usage of information technology for teaching, though the rate of software adoption is higher than the rate of hardware adoption. While opportunities to learn technology are available, about two-thirds of the faculty members have not completed the available seminars and workshops on information technologies but prefer more informal ways of learning information technology, such as talking with other faculty members.