# Assessing Digital Technologies' Adoption in Romanian Secondary Schools
## 5 Discussion
### Practical Implications  
These findings offer clear guidance for reshaping digital integration strategies in education. For school administrators, the results highlight the importance of investing in user-friendly platforms with clean interfaces and minimal learning curves. What matters most is not flashy features but how easily teachers can integrate tools into their daily workflow. Curriculum designers should view professional development as ongoing apprenticeships rather than one-time workshops, creating safe spaces where educators can troubleshoot real classroom scenarios. The research also suggests that mentorship programs pairing tech-savvy teachers with hesitant colleagues could be more effective than traditional training, leveraging social influence to build confidence.  
In Romania, the integration of digital technologies into secondary education remains inconsistent due to ongoing and complex systemic challenges. One of the most significant barriers is the pronounced disparity between urban and rural areas regarding internet connectivity. While urban schools typically enjoy stable broadband access, many rural institutions continue to function with slow, unreliable, or nonexistent internet connections, severely limiting their ability to develop digital learning environments.  
Another significant issue is the technology provided in schools. Many institutions, especially those in economically disadvantaged areas, lack sufficient digital infrastructure, such as updated computers, smartboards, projectors, and enough devices for students. Even when basic equipment is available, it is often outdated, poorly maintained, or shared among too many users, which diminishes its pedagogical effectiveness. Adding to these challenges is the limited availability of dedicated IT personnel who can offer technical support and maintain digital systems, leaving many schools without the expertise necessary to ensure long-term digital integration.  
Additionally, national policies supporting digital education are often fragmented and applied inconsistently across regions, leading to disparities in resource allocation and implementation timelines. Teachers frequently report inadequate access to structured, ongoing professional development programs focused on digital pedagogy. Many feel unprepared to navigate the technical and instructional demands of digital tools, contributing to low confidence and a reluctance to experiment with new technologies in the classroom.  
This complex empirical reality provides an essential context for our findings, particularly regarding the dominant influence of perceived ease of use. In environments where digital adoption is neither standardized nor adequately supported, educators tend to prefer intuitive and low-effort solutions over tools that are perceived as innovative but challenging to implement. Thus, the findings of this study reflect not only individual-level attitudes but also deeper systemic barriers that affect digital adoption behaviors in Romanian secondary education. Tackling these challenges will require coordinated, policy-driven reforms that invest in infrastructure, training, and equitable digital access.