Abstract
Digital resources can be implemented to support the quality of education, including for teachers teaching science. Studies have explored technology integration for schools in cities and urban areas; however, few studies focused on the technology integration in education of rural areas. Therefore, this study aimed at elaborating factors predicting Indonesian science teachers' integration of digital resources in education, especially for teaching activities in rural areas. Besides, demographic information was addressed to understand the differences regarding the integration of digital resources in education. We collected data from 217 respondents who are science teachers of senior and junior high schools in one province located in Sumatra, Indonesia. Using Smart PLS 3.0, we analyzed the data to understand the relationship between exogenous and endogenous variables. In addition, t-test was used to elaborate on the differences regarding the integration of digital resources based on demographic information. Findings from the path analysis show that attitude was the strongest driver predicting intention to use digital resources in education perceived by teachers in rural areas. Meanwhile, self-efficacy was reported to be insignificant for the intention to use. The only predictor that is positively significant for actual behavior was intention to use. Other factors (facilitating condition and knowledge and skills) did not affect actual behavior. In addition, the difference test informed that Mean values between participants’ teaching experience was significantly different regarding the integration of digital resources of schools in rural areas. No significant differences were reported based on gender and level of school. The technology integration for schools in rural areas is different compared to the schools in cities and urban areas. With limited accesses and resources, this study might provide practical implications and recommendations for further research, especially on technology integration in schools of rural area.
Highlights
Nowadays, experts in education have almost similar academic opinions that people around the world should have free, open, and easy access to reach digital resources for the purpose of teaching and learning (Hoosen, 2012)
In addition to the structural model reported in this study, we investigated whether the demographic information are different regarding the actual behavior of the integration of digital resources in education
Similar characteristics of Indonesian rural areas across the Islands e.g. Sumatra, Java, Bali, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, and Papua could make a greater contribution of the findings for the betterment of Indonesian education, especially in rural areas
Summary
Experts in education have almost similar academic opinions that people around the world should have free, open, and easy access to reach digital resources for the purpose of teaching and learning (Hoosen, 2012). Studies have informed that the digital resources for education have been well-implemented in developed countries such as USA (Tyler-Wood et al, 2018), Norway (Instefjord and Munthe, 2017), and China (Wang et al, 2019). This potential has been made to be suitable with major cities in developing countries, for example, Jakarta as the capital city of Indonesia and Kualalumpur in Malaysia. In terms of educational quality, teachers in rural areas seem to be less qualified than that of their urban peers, teachers working in major cities (Liu and Onwuegbuzie, 2012). The lack of quality resources and their access to digital technology have been recognized as pressing challenges (Habibi et al, 2020)
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