Date of Award

5-1-2013

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Curriculum and Instruction

First Advisor

McIntyre, John

Abstract

This mixed method study combined the paradigms of quantitative and qualitative research to examine how iPads are used from teachers' perspectives. In the first phase, the researcher collected and analyzed the quantitative data from classroom observations. The second phase consisted of collecting and analyzing the qualitative data to help explain, or elaborate on the quantitative results in the first phase. The researcher utilized a convenient sample of 21 elementary and secondary working teachers who had been using iPads in their classroom at their school in southern Illinois. The findings showed that the majority of teachers did not have any iPad training. They all had to resort to different sources such as self-learning and colleagues' support to learn more about how to integrate the iPad and useful apps into their teaching. There were three practices of iPad use in the classroom. The first practice was that the teachers delivered each iPad to each learner. The second practice was similar to the first practice but the teacher checked out only five or six iPads and distributed each iPad to each group in the classroom. The third practice was that only the teacher used the iPad to deliver the lesson in the classroom. In all cases, the teachers combined the iPad with other technology devices to show the content to the students on the project screen. Students who were taught by the teachers with the iPad mainly worked either individually or in the whole class. In addition, the most common roles the teachers took were lecturing and facilitating when they integrated the iPad into their teaching. The most common level of activities or in-class assignments was "knowledge representation" equivalent of "comprehension" level on the Bloom's Taxonomy. Regarding the frequency of iPad use in the classroom, while teachers at public schools sometime used the iPad, their peers at a private school frequently used it. The result also indicated that, according to the teachers, the use of the iPad in the classroom was somewhat useful (2.75 out of 5.00). The average time a teacher spent preparing an iPad-integrated lesson depended on whether he or she had any formal training in iPad use or not. Finally, the teachers observed differences in their students' motivation and/or behaviors when they were learning with the iPad. They were skeptical about whether the use of the iPad had any impact on their students' achievements because there were many variables that could affect their achievements. However, they agreed that the quality of their students' tasks or assignments on the day the iPad was used were better than those on the day the iPad was not used.

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