Lowered Expectations and Power: A Multi-Site Case Study of K-12 Educational Technology Decision-Makers

This dissertation seeks to better understand the individual educational technology decision-maker and how they interact with other members of the educational technology decision making process in a public k-12 school setting. To do this, I asked the questions: who are the people who make educational technology decision in a K-12 school district? What qualifications regarding technology do the people who make educational technology decisions hold? How does the technology decision making process unfold within a given district? What personal experiences impact educational technology decisions? This study also introduces the Essential Aspects of Educational Technology Decision-Making Framework to understand how different aspects of technology and leadership influence the types of educational technology problems a district will face, what individual decision-makers will draw in from their background when they participate in the educational technology decision making process, and the power dynamics of the process itself. This mixed method study used descriptive statistical analysis to provide context to the interview data collected from participants from four Pennsylvania school districts. This study found that most of the participating educational technology decision-makers had no formal technology training and relied heavily on their educational experience as their primary qualification for making decisions about technology. The lack of formal training and over-reliance on educational experience, along with other factors, perpetuated a series of unconscious, yet pervasive lowered expectations toward educational technology. This study also found that Technology Directors have an outsized amount of practical power in a school district as a result of the nature of the position and other members of the decision-making process deferring their judgment to that of the Technology Director. These findings show the need to further understand how the lack of formal technology qualifications are influencing how decisions about educational technology are made, the nature and magnitude of the influence Technology Directors wield, and how the community's perceptions of educational technology can be better understood and, if need be, improved. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]