A Preliminary Examination of Faculty Reluctance to Use Technology in the Classroom

For the past decade, higher education has been undergoing a not-so-subtle bombardment from critics. One of the main criticisms of these educational structures involves the apparent inability to prepare gra- duates for placement in the workforce (Taylor & Eustis, 1999). Competition from private enterprise and private education and elementary and secondary educational institutions, aging faculty, a reduced sup- ply of teacher-candidates, reduced budgets, technology, and increased demands for accountability have brought education to a point of crisis. Added to this is the realization by industry and consumers that a high school education alone is no longer sufficient for employability, and educational coursework beyond the high school level is essential in order to gain meaningful employment (Tagg, Wilson, Trachtenberg, & Rubinstein, 1998). These challenges have forced higher education into a state of rapid change. The information age in gene- ral, and especially the Internet, have caused enormous pressure on education to force it to adapt itself to the fast pace of the 21st century. Just as the Internet has changed the way we do business, it has also changed the way that we conduct education and learning activities (Kirschner & Paas, n.d.). One suggested cause of this change has been and continues to be the incorporation of innovation through the inclusion of technology into all aspects of education, especially course delivery. However, simply kno- wing how to incorporate innovation and technology into instruction is not enough. Incentives are needed to complete the process and ensure participation by educational professionals (Vilberg, 2001). In addition to technology, alternative methods of delivering innovative educational courses will continue to play a major role in higher learning and education of the future. Zhang (2002) reported that the U.S. Department of Education statistics (NCES 98-062, Statistical Analysis Report) from October 1997 indi- cated that 97% of public two-year institutions had already developed distance education courses for undergraduates, with approximately 55% of total community college students participating in distance education. This is compared with 75% of public four-year institutions who had developed distance edu- cation courses that enrolled 31% of their students in these courses, and 47% of private four year insti- tutions enrolling 4% of their students by distance education. The increased acceptance by institutions of courses available through the Internet and the increasing use of computer-based materials have brought about the demand that courses being offered on a colle- ge’s campus should include a technology component. This component more often than not is expected to take the form of a presence on the Internet. No discipline is expected by students to be “immune” from the expectation that materials and course documents should be readily available at the click of a button. Reese (2002) suggested how language teachers could enhance their classes using the Internet and Internet technology. One prediction is that before long computers will even take over some of the monitoring of student progress, leading to some form of “cyber teaching” (Zhang, 2002). Another prediction is that eventually there will be two main types of educational institutions: those that have incorporated innovation and have added value in course work and those that are certifying agen- cies. The certifying colleges and universities reportedly are those that act as educational bankers for stu- dents (Dunn, 2000). This study is an attempt to determine why, in light of all the educational techno- logy available and for all the pressure and expectations being placed on education, there are still siza- ble segments of higher education that are resistant to using these resources to add innovation into the classroom and to incorporate these changes.