An investigation of teachers' beliefs and their use of technology-based assessments

Abstract

In the context of school settings, when implementing educational innovations such as technology-based assessments (TBAs) , teachers take a variety of factors into consideration including the resources provided by their school, the approval of parents, and students’ needs. To explore teachers' beliefs and relevant factors about TBAs, therefore, this study adopts the framework of the decomposed theory of planned behavior (DTPB) (Taylor & Todd, 1995), and aims at investigating the interaction between teachers’ beliefs and their actual use of TBAs. Forty technology-experienced science teachers participated in our semi-structured interview of assessment beliefs and practice. Responses from all teachers were coded and analyzed based on the coding scheme adapt from DTPB. Results showed the highlighted features of the most prevalent beliefs. On one hand, 75% of participating teachers perceived various kinds of usefulness of TBAs. On the other hand, teachers showed their concerns about the disapproval from schools and considerations of the external restrained conditions such as the lack of time, infrastructure and support personnel. By combining these features with teachers’ self-reported usage, we articulate the possible factors that may affect teachers’ usage. That is to say, teachers with more positive beliefs tend to use the TBAs frequently. Nevertheless, teachers would keep themselves away from use TBAs when they perceived many negative factors in Perceived Behavior Control beliefs and Subjective Norm beliefs.