A study of elementary school district superintendents\u27 perceptions of challenges related to the implementation of networked educational technology and Internet access for elementary schools

This study identified fourteen null hypotheses related to the impact of certain variables and their effect on the support of networked educational technology and Internet access by elementary school district superintendents. Sixty elementary and nineteen unified school districts superintendents in the San Joaquin region of the California School Leadership Academy representing eight counties were surveyed. Independent variables related to gender, age, years of experience as a superintendent, years in current district, and level of personal use of computers were compared with dependent variables related to costs associated with implementation, costs related to maintenance, repair and replacement, cost of training, socio-economic and gender equity issues, Internet safety issues, potential loss of instructional time and grade level span of students. The study found a high level of overall support for networked educational technology and Internet access for elementary age students. The highest support level was for grades 7–8, support for grades 4–6 was somewhat lower, and support for grades k–3 was the lowest of the grade spans. A ranking of concerns identified costs associated with maintenance and replacement to be the biggest concern. Initial implementation costs, Internet safety issues, cost of training, socio-economic issues, potential loss of instructional time, and gender equity issues were identified in order of importance. Significant positive correlations were discovered between superintendents\u27 length of tenure in their current districts and concerns related to both Internet safety issues and potential loss of instructional time. A negative correlation was found between years experience as a superintendent and overall support for networked educational technology and Internet access. No correlations were found between district size, gender, age, or personal use of computers and the independent variables of implementation costs, costs of maintenance repair and replacement, costs of training, socio-economic or gender equity, Internet safety issues, or potential loss of instructional time