This section presents the research framework, strategies, and data analysis process for the Factor Study.
The goal of the Factor Study was to explore what factors influence K-12 teachers’ information needs and information-seeking activities. Information needs and information-seeking activities are factors created by factor analysis on the variables in questions Q23 and Q15, respectively (see Table 7 and Table 8). The Factor Study drew on the theoretical concept of Task Complexity in Information Seeking (Byström & Järvelin, 1995) to understand what factors affect teachers in determining their information-seeking behavior in order to satisfy their lesson preparation needs (See Figure 9). There are many factors that influence K-12 teachers’ usage of computer technologies as outlined in Section 1.1. The six principal factors chosen for this study are (1) Background – including demographic, educational, and teaching background; (2) Prior Technological Experience; (3) Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK); (4) Extrinsic Barriers (related to interface design, system support, and time issues); (5) Intrinsic Barriers (related to participants’ beliefs and confidences); (6) Attitude – Intentions, Personal Preferences, and Comfort level. These function as independent variables to understand whether
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these factors influence K-12 teachers’ information-seeking behavior when they seek information from educational portals as information resources to be incorporated into course/lesson preparation. The rationale for choosing these six factors was previously outlined in Section 1.1.
Figure 9. Framework of the Factor Study
In order to answer the main Research Question (RQ1) of the Factor Study, I included three sub-research questions (below) to explore the relationship between the six factors and information-seeking behavior. The RQ1-1 focuses on associations among the six factors to understand whether these factors interactively influence each other. RQ1-2 and RQ1-3 focus on whether these factors individually influence K-12 teachers’ information-seeking behavior via two dependent variables: Information needs and Information-seeking activities.
RQ1- 1: For K-12 teachers using educational portals, how are the six factors related to each other?
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RQ1-2: When using educational portals, are teachers’ information needs related to these various factors?
RQ1-3: When using educational portals, are teachers’ information seeking activities related to these various factors?
3.1.1 Research Strategies of the Factor Study
To answer RQ1 and its related sub-research questions, I conducted the Factor Survey, a web- based questionnaire, to collect the data pertaining to RQ1 in order to answer the research questions in the Factor Study as discussed above. The Factor Survey came from two sources: literature search (existing studies on the factors influencing teachers’ technological integration in the classroom) and discussions with professional workers at NCTA, which focused on the six identified factors that were suspected to be important for understanding K-12 teachers and their information-seeking behavior (including information needs and information-seeking activities) when the teachers use educational portals (See Appendix A: Factor Survey for the text of the 25 questions that made up the online survey).
The Factor Survey first collected teachers’ background information that included gender, age, major in university, degree earned, years of teaching experience, and subject(s) taught, based on guidelines from the National Center for Education Information [NCEI] (Feistritzer, 2011). The Q1 to Q7 collected participants’ background information.
Second, the Factor Survey recorded teachers’ prior technological experiences including the teachers’ internet access mechanism, how often they incorporated technology into their classrooms, how often they used online search engines to search for teaching materials, and
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whether they had used educational portals previously. The Q8 to Q11, Q13, and Q14 collected the teachers’ prior technological experiences.
Third, the Factor Survey examined teachers’ TPACK via a set of questions that allowed respondents to self-report their knowledge of content, pedagogy (strategy and practices of the subject), and technology (using various tools). The responses were collected on the Q12 to Q16 and Q17 with a 5-point Likert scale.
Teachers’ barriers are classified into two categories – Extrinsic and Intrinsic Barriers. The Extrinsic Barriers consider system-level (environmental) barriers. The Q24 in the Factor Survey focused on collecting the information concerning accessibility/availability, adequate support and training, time required to use, and interface obstacles such as lack of well-organized content and poor interface design. The Intrinsic Barriers focus on personal barriers such as lack of belief, confidence, time, and skills to incorporate materials from educational portals to their teaching practice, as well as colleagues’ opinions and the reputation of portals. The Q25 in the Factor Survey focused on teachers’ intrinsic barrier. The data collected for both types of barriers was collected with multiple-choice questions.
The questions about teachers’ attitudes are related to participants’ intentions toward using material from educational portals in their lesson planning, as well as their personal preference and comfort level using the portals to support their teaching preparation. They were all collected on Q20 to Q22 with a 5-point Likert scale or single-choice question in the Factor Surrey.
Finally, teachers’ information-seeking behavior included two aspects – Information Needs and Information-Seeking Activities – to explore the reasons why teachers seek information on the portals, and how they do their search when they seek information on the portals (including browsing, searching/retrieving, deriving, sharing, and communicating). The
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questions related to information needs and information-seeking activities, Q23 and Q15, used a 5-point Likert scale with multiple-choice questions. Actual numeric values for information needs and information-seeking activities came from a factor analysis.
The Factor Survey was created with the Qualtrics survey system. The participants overall took an average of 30 minutes to complete the 25 question online survey consisting of multiple- choice questions (single or multiple selections), short-answer questions, and questions with answers on a 5-point Likert scale.
3.1.2 Data Analysis Process of the Factor Study
Data analysis was conducted using SAS 9.3 and included two sections of analysis – descriptive, factor analysis, and general linear models – to understand the relationship among the aforementioned factors. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the main features from data collections and to summarize the results from the data. Factor analysis and general linear models were used to address three research questions to further analyze the relationship among the six important factors, teachers’ information needs and information seeking activities.
To accurately select variables to fit linear models to answer the research questions, I first performed a bivariate analysis to understand the associations among the six factors. Also, I conducted factor analysis to construct several factors variables (i.e. TPACK, Attitude, Information Needs and Information-Seeking Activities). The reason I created these factor variables is because these factors are complex concepts that cannot be directly measured with one question in a questionnaire. For example, the TPACK factor is a three part concept and
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cannot be measured by only asking one question. So, I performed factor analysis to construct a TPACK factor from the knowledge of technology, pedagogy, and content questions in the survey.