By Jack (Jie) Yang, Jun Ma & Sarah Howard

Technological innovation in schools has, as yet, resulted in relatively limited teacher and student engagement with new ways of learning supported through information and communication technologies (ICTs). One of the possible reasons for this is that educational research has struggled to grasp the complexity or dynamic nature of technology integration. Data mining techniques have drawn the attention of researchers from the education research area to understand some of the complexity of technology integration within a theoretical system model of technology integration.

The seminar we presented on 12 August 2015 reported our research work on using data mining technology to analyse the experiences and beliefs of students in ICT engagement, ICT efficacy, school engagement and their interactions. Specifically, the analysis explored key factors of students’ perceptions of technology integration, to suggest how they may inform teachers’ technology integration in the classroom. The analysis drew on a state-level student questionnaire data from the evaluation of a large-scale Australian one-to-one laptop program. Early results demonstrate that students with positive and negative engagements in ICT techniques have different centralized tendencies around ICT efficacy in completing productivity, processing or creation tasks. Moreover, students’ school engagement also contributes to understanding of the non-uniform students’ experience in technology integration in the learning environment.

Future researches including implications for teaching, technology use in schools, developing the systematic methods for analysing extra variables and exploring teachers’ perceptions and practices in the ICT-based learning environment are also discussed.

The seminar presentation can be found via Prezi.