JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW TEMPLATE

North American University

Education Department
M.Ed. in Educational Leadership / M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction
EDUC 5324 Integrating Technology into Education

Name:__Ozan Basturk___________ Date: ___10/30/2019______________

Cite the reviewed article in APA format:

Waxman, H., Boriack, A., Yuan-Hsuan, L., & MacNeil, A. (2013). Principals' Perceptions of the
Importance of Technology in Schools. Contemporary Educational Technology, 4(3), 187-196.

INTRODUCTION

Research Questions (if research questions are not specifically mentioned, what
is the theoretical background or overarching theme):
Recently there has been an increased interest on what successful school principals do
in order to increase students’ academic achievement and graduation rates (Day &
Leithwood, 2007; Schargel, Thacker, & Bell, 2007; Waxman, MacNeil, & Lee, 2006).
Additional research has focused on principals’ work, perceptions, and attitudes in order
to determine if principals’ behaviors influence student learning and teachers’ behavior
(Leithwood & Riehl, 2005). Several other major national and international studies have
highlighted the need to focus on principals’ perceptions and attitudes toward leadership

Purpose of the research:

The present study builds on the prior research and includes an open ended, cognitive
interview question that allows for the examination of principals’ perspectives and
orientations toward technology. Furthermore, while other studies have explored
differences by type of school, the present study focuses on principal characteristics
such as years of experience and gender. There have been relatively few studies that
have examined the influence of gender and experience on principals’ use of computers
(Serhan, 2009). The present study specifically examines the following two research
questions: (a) What are principals’ perceptions of the importance of technology? and
(b) Do principals’ perceptions of technology differ by years of experience and gender?

METHODOLOGY

What is the methodology for the research or approach used to understand the
issue? Provide information regarding the following:
The questionnaire was administered by graduate students in the Educational
Leadership program at a major, urban doctoral-granting university located in the south
central region of the U.S. As part of the principal’s certification course requirements,
students were trained on how to administer the instrument and required to interview a
specific number of current public school principals. The survey instrument was
designed specifically for this purpose and included both qualitative and quantitative
questions.

Participants:310 principals from a large metropolitan area in the southwest region of

the United States. (126 males, 186 females)

Procedures:Analysis of the interview data began with a process of data reduction.

The participants’ responses were read several times to become familiar with the data.
The data was then coded into meaningful categories. Once the categories were
established, another researcher independently coded a 10% sample of responses to
determine the consistency of the coding. The inter-coder reliability results revealed a
high level of agreement (Cohen’s kappa = .94).

Data Collection Methods/Data Source:

The questionnaire was administered by graduate students in the Educational
Leadership program at a major, urban doctoral-granting university located in the south
central region of the U.S. As part of the principal’s certification course requirements,
students were trained on how to administer the instrument and required to interview a
specific number of current public school principals. The survey instrument was
designed specifically for this purpose and included both qualitative and quantitative
questions.

Data Analysis:
Major Function of Technology Male (n=126) Female (n=184)
Communication 32.5 % 35.9 %
Instruction 32.6 % 24.6 %
Data sharing and management 15.0 % 15.2 %
Resource 15.9 % 13.6 %
Administrative tasks 12.0 % 8.7 %
Student learning 7.2 % 11.5 %
Note. Percentages do not add up to 100 since some responses were in more
than one category.

RESULTS

Findings or Results (or main points of the article):

About one-third (35%) of the principals indicated that technology was used as a
primary communication tool.
Over one-quarter (28%) of principals responded that technology was integrated in
teachers’ classroom instruction.
The third category was using technology for data sharing and management (14%).
Category four was using technology as a resource to find information (15%) and a
principal shared, “It [technology] reduces the time to reach resources and also
increases the number of resources.”
Males and females differed in their perceptions of the other four categories. In order of
decreasing percentage for males the last four categories were using technology: as a
resource (16%), for data sharing and management (15%), for administrative tasks
(12%), and for student learning (10%). The percentages for females in decreasing order
were using technology: for data sharing and management (15%), as a resource (14%),
for student learning (12%), and for administrative tasks (9%).
Finally, principals’ perceptions of the major functions of technology were examined by
years of experience: 0-3 years, 4-7 years, 8-11 years, 12-15 years, and more than 15
years. The two major functions of technology with the highest percentage were
communication and instruction. The highest percentage for principals with 0-3, 4-7,
and 8-11 years of experience was in communication (39%, 33%, and 31%,
respectively) followed by instruction (24%, 30%, and 24%, respectively). Principals
with 12-15 and more than 15 years of experience had the highest percentage in
instruction (31% and 39%, respectively) followed by communication (28% and 36%,
respectively)
DISCUSSIONS

Conclusions/Implications (for your profession):

It is a fact that the use of the technology at the schools depend on many factors like
budget availability, having trained staff and principal and administrators in
general…etc, what we are studying here is the purpose of the use of technology
among principals by their sexes, experiences, and familiarities, and tendencies which
are not much different between male and female principals. What made a bigger
difference is how well they are adapted to their era, how much they feel need for using
technologies and how well they are trained. If the principals feel confident about using
the technologies they are able to support teachers and they think it is necessary to
provide them those technological tools. If they are not trained they tend to not use the
technologies no matter how much it would benefit the teachers.

REFLECTIONS

Student’s Reflections (changes to your understanding; implications for your

school/work):
I have been very much like those old school, hard headed principals who is not very
well trained or even though I was trained for the most of them I always avoided using
the computer technologies because I never felt fully confident obviously.
Because of my current position which is different than just teaching to the students I
will have to learn the use of computer technologies and help the teachers at my district
implement and use those technologies and modern strategies in their classes. As far
as I see in the study results none of the categories of study groups have extreme
cases of overusing or not using at all, but I still feel like I have to make necessary
planning for using the technological tools, especially the computer technologies. I am
aware that I am working at a very poor district which will not be easy for me to get
what I need because of the budget unavailability, and no matter how well I am able
use or how much it will be easy for my district to provide me with what I demand, my
students at this district are coming from a very low profile families which makes them
underachievers most of the time which will not be drastically affected in a positive way
if I get much technology involved. I have seen many examples of the consequences of
the overuse of technology. It even acts like a big distractive factor for the students
which harms the performance of the teachers rather than boosting their efficiency.