Teacher Perceptions Regarding The Effect Of Tablet Technology On The Academic Engagement Of Elementary And Middle School Students

The velocious evolution of technology has applied great pressure on educational institutions to transform curriculum delivery systems and provide innovative tools to accelerate closing the academic achievement gap (Maddux & Johnson, 2011a). Essential to understanding the critical factors that create achievement gaps is the understanding that students are different from each other. Instructional focus must shift to personalized instruction by individualizing the learning experience and tapping into the intrinsic motivation every child has to learn (C. Johnson, 2014). At the forefront of this change is technology innovation using tablet technology. Successful implementation of instructional technology has been difficult because many educational institutions are stuck in the industrial era and are reactionary in the adoption of meaningful technology (Soloway, 1993). The result is frivolous spending on fads that have negligible impact on learning (Bloom, 1981; Haswell, 1993). This study examined the effect that tablet technology has on academic engagement. In this study the impact that tablet technology has on the various phases of the lesson cycle was examined by investigating the perceptions of elementary and middles school teachers. By examining the implementation of tablet technology at the various phases of the lesson cycle, this study has identified the effects that tablet technology has on student motivation. A qualitative cross-sectional survey research design was used. The subjects were elementary and middle school teachers in a large suburban southeast Texas school district that incorporated tablet technology into the various phases of a lesson. Each of the fourteen survey questions, using Likert scale responses, yielded quantitative data and were examined using descriptive statistics, including mean, median, mode, standard deviations and frequencies. The results of this study suggest that there is a strong relationship (μ = 4.53, σ = 0.73) between Tablet Technology and academic engagement as perceived by elementary and middle school teachers. Each of the seven dimensions of the Lesson Design model supported these findings with means ranging from 3.61 to 4.25 and standard deviations ranging from 0.78 to 1.13. Teacher perceptions regarding the impact of Tablet Technology on student motivation yielded means ranging from 3.19 to 4.32 and standard deviations ranging from 0.73 to 1.25. Evaluation of these statistics strongly suggests that there is a relationship between tablet technology and student motivation.Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Department o