Tablets in Education: Outcome Expectancy and Anxiety of Middle School Students*

AbstractIt is planned that every student in all primary, middle, and high schools (public schools) under the administration of the Turkish Ministry of National Education receive a tablet through the FATIH Project. Research shows that many teachers hold reservations toward students using tablets for educational purposes. The purpose of this study is to determine middle school students' perceptions regarding the integration of tablets into the learning process. Participants totaled 939 students in eight middle schools located in different cities throughout Turkey. Data were gathered through means of a survey (questionnaire) which included demographics like grade level and gender as well as items on tablet related issues and on student opinions. Two factors - outcome expectancy and tablet anxiety - were identified through an exploratory factor analysis. Â confirmatory factor analysis was conducted afterward in order to confirm and exemplify factors and their items. Two measurement models were tested, the latter returning a good model fit. The IMAMOVA test results showed that grade level affected the opinions on outcome expectancy, while gender affected tablet anxiety. It was found that 7th graders were the most optimistic of all grades in terms of outcome expectancy and that males were more withdrawn. It was also found that students with previous tablet experience were more optimistic regarding outcome expectancy.KeywordsTablet PC, Anxiety, Outcome Expectancy, Middle School, Gender.As technology has continued to advance at such a rapid pace over recent decades, educational and instructional techniques have undergone constant change based on these advancements. Thus, the use of computers and technological devices in education has gradually become more and more widespread. Following this trend, throughout Turkey, 570,000 classrooms within kindergarten, primary, middle and high schools are planned to receive LCD panel interactive whiteboards and Internet infrastructure through the FATIH Project, administered by the Ministry of National Education. Moreover, all teachers and students are planned to receive tablet PCs with middle school students to receive tablets within the third year of the project, and with students from other grades to receive later (FATIH Projesi, 2013). The project's underlying assumption is that students will use the tablets as intended. Yet, as it is argued " successful investment in technology can lead to enhanced productivity, while failed systems can lead to undesirable consequences such as financial losses and dissatisfaction" (Venkatesh, 2000, p. 342). In this respect, therefore, investigating middle school students' acceptance of tablets becomes important since the outcomes of such studies can provide clues as to the quality of how tables will actually be used upon introduction to the education process. While a significant body of research exists on the use of technological innovations and systems, such as TAM (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989) and models of PC utilization (Thompson, Higgins, & Howell, 1991, 1994), literature on middle school students' acceptance of tablets is scarce. This study is an attempt to identify to what extent students accept using tablets by examining factors influencing students' outcome expectancy and anxiety.Computer based education (CBE), a concept superior even to tablets, supports learning by allowing students to synthesize information audio-visually (Cekbas, Yakar, Yildirim, & Savran, 2003; Morgil, Yavuz, Oskay, & Arda, 2005). CBE allows for the utilization of laptops, tablets, and smart phones/pdas along with many other alternatives. It is being debated that CBE supports comprehension rather than memorization which therefore enhances student achievement as compared to traditional instruction (Cekbas et al., 2003). Moreover, just as it provides opportunities for instruction to be customized for individual diversities, so are students able to repeat lessons in CBE. …