JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW TEMPLATE

North American University

Education Department
M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction
EDUC 5324
Name:

Yusuf Kaynak

Date: 7/12/15

Cite the reviewed article in APA format:

Dogan, B., & Almus, K. (2014). School Administrators Use of iPads: Impact of Training and
Attitudes Toward School Use.Computers in the Schools, 31(3), 233250.
doi:10.1080/07380569.2014.932660

INTRODUCTION
Research Questions (if research questions are not specifically mentioned, what is
the theoretical background or overarching theme):

This study intended to answer the following questions:

1. What is the impact of the training process on school administrators use of iPads for
administrative tasks and personal organization in their professional duties?
2. What is the impact of the training process on school administrators beliefs regarding
how teachers should use iPads in the classroom?
3. Are there any differences in school administrators survey responses based on gender,
age, years of experience in school administration and education, highest degree attained,
school classification, or school size?
Purpose of the research:

This survey-based quantitative study investigated the impact of receiving iPad training on
school administrators attitudes towards iPad use in their professional lives and in the
classroom by teachers.
METHODOLOGY
What is the methodology for the research or approach used to understand the
issue? Provide information regarding the following:

Participants:
Fifty-one participants who owned iPads volunteered to complete the pre-survey out of
approximately 120 school administrators in the school system. While 58.8% (n = 30) of
the pre-survey participants were male, 41.2% (n = 21) of the participants were female.
Additionally, 37 of pre-survey respondents completed the post-survey, yielding a
response rate of 72.55%. Twenty-one (56.76%) respondents in post-survey were male,
and 16 (43.24%) were female.

Procedures:
Training was designed based on feedback from participants and delivered through an
interactive webinar session. The training of school administrators included topics
intended to develop iPad skills and use certain workflow, note-taking, calendar,
productivity, file-sharing, remote-desktop, presentation, and screen-sharing applications
covered specifically from a principals perspective. Additional resources reinforcing the
topics covered in the initial training session were provided later to school administrators
in the form of video and written tutorials for their convenience. Technical support
regarding the training topics and study was available to participants on an ongoing basis.
Researchers provided technical support to school administrators via e-mail and telephone.
Data Collection Methods/Data Source:
Study components included a pre-survey, a training session on the effective use of iPads
for administrative tasks and personal organization, specially designed resources
expanding the topics covered in the training session, on-going support, and a post-survey.
The study was conducted February through May 2013. As researchers, we developed two
survey instruments as a mechanism to collect data, which were administered online
through the survey submission system hosted at the universitys server. The pre-survey
was administered at the beginning of the spring 2013 semester and the post survey was
given at the end of the four-month study period. Both instruments were reviewed for face
validity by two education faculty members and then were piloted using a group of school
administrators in a local school district. Surveys were finalized after the feedback on the
pilot versions. Demographic information collected on the pre-survey included age, years
of experience as a school administrator, years of experience in education, highest degree
earned, school classification, and school size. The pre-survey also included questions
measuring if and how school administrators were currently using their iPads for their
daily school-related tasks, their beliefs about the effectiveness of iPads for administrative
tasks, and if and how school teachers should be using iPads in the classroom. Designed as
a closure to the study, the post-survey instrument included questions intended to measure
self-reported improvements in certain tasks after completing the training, as well as items
regarding the evaluation of training session and resources provided to school
administrators during the Downloaded by [76.31.198.76] at 18:17 03 November 2014
School Administrators Use of iPads 237 study. In addition, some of the questions of the
pre-survey were repeated in the post-survey to assess the change in responses during the
study. Survey instruments included multiple choice and Likert-type scale items. The
survey responses were reported as frequencies. In addition, paired sample t-test data
analysis was conducted to understand the differences in the responses between the preand post-surveys. A one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test was conducted to see
whether there were any differences in school administrators responses by gender, age,
years of experience in school administration and education, highest degree attained,
school classification, and school size. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS)
software was used to conduct the data analysis.
Data Analysis:
The data analysis of this study is categorized into five main groups:
Analysis of demographic and contextual data;

Impacts of the training process on school administrators use of iPad and iPad
applications;
Impacts of the training process on school administrators beliefs regarding how
teachers should use iPads in the classroom;
Differences in participants responses by their demographic and contextual data
(gender, age, years of experience in school administration and education, highest
degree attained, school classification, and school size);
And evaluation of training process.
RESULTS

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

1. What is the impact of the training process on school administrators use of iPads
for administrative tasks and personal organization in their professional duties?
Prior to the training process, almost 68% of the school administrators rated their
iPad skills and knowledge as intermediate to advanced. After the training process,
school administrators reported increases in their iPad skills and knowledge.
According to the results of the post-survey, nearly 80% of school administrators
considered their iPad skills and knowledge at the level of intermediate to
advanced. These results suggest that, overall, the Downloaded by [76.31.198.76]
at 18:17 03 November 2014 246 B. Dogan and K. Almus training process had a
positive effect on the development of iPad skills and knowledge of the school
administrators. Results also indicated that applications in the educational
category were the most used types of iPad applications, followed by
communication and books and reference prior to the training. While the same
trend was observed in the post-survey, the training process seemed to have a
positive impact on the use of applications in productivity and tools categories
as well. This result was expected, as iPad applications in categories of
productivity and tools were covered in the training session as well as in the
resources provided after training. Among the iPad applications highlighted during
the training process, Google Drive storage and sharing files, syncing Google
Calendar to your iPad, and Dropbox for storage and sharing files were the
most used iPad applications. To a lesser extent, Evernote for note
taking/organizing and Go Tasks with Google Tasks were also used by school
administrators. This result suggests that iPads may have a potential to be used for
administrative tasks by school administrators.
2. What is the impact of the training process on school administrators beliefs
regarding how teachers should use iPads in the classroom?
According to results, school administrators believed that iPads were effective
tools for administrative tasks and personal organization. Additionally,
administrators were even more in agreement with this idea after completing the
training process. Overall, there were increases in the frequency of school
administrators use of the iPad for administrative tasks and personal organization
in all measured areas. Specifically, the increases in task delegation,

organization, calendar, document sharing, researching through Internet,

and using specific applications for my work areas were statistically significant.
Overall, these results were in alignment with Winslow et al. (2012) in which
school principals also believed that iPads provided measurable productivity gains
in school administrator tasks.
3. Are there any differences in school administrators survey responses based on
gender, age, years of experience in school administration and education, highest
degree attained, school classification, or school size?
Regardless of age, years of experience in school administration and in education,
highest degree earned, school size, or gender, school administrators responded
similarly to items in this study. School administrators responded somewhat
differently to the self-reported level of iPad skills and knowledge by school
classification. According to the results, school administrators in K5 reported
their level of iPad skills and knowledge higher than administrators of K8 and K
12 schools. Furthermore, administrators in K-12 schools reported significantly
lower level of iPad skills and knowledge than administrators of K-5 and K-8
schools. Further research is required to understand the reasons behind this
interesting finding.
DISCUSSIONS
Conclusions/Implications (for your profession):

Further research showed that there is a correlation between the amount of technology
training principals receive and the integration of technology in the school (Dawson &
Rakes, 2003). In conclusion, overall results of this study suggest that in order for school
administrators to be successful in using iPads for professional duties, especially for
administrative tasks and personal organization, sufficient and ongoing training is
recommended. As school administrators are seen as both the instructional and
technological leaders of their schools, receiving appropriate training would not only
allow them to be efficient in performing work-related tasks but also positively effect the
successful implementation of iPads by teachers and students.
REFLECTIONS
Students Reflections (changes to your understanding; implications for your
school/work):

It is an undeniable fact that using I pads has recently been increased by the people in all
areas in the society. There are millions of applications about business, news,
communication, playing games, tourism, fashion and of course education. Nowadays
using computer for these websites is as not effective as using iPads due to the facts that
iPads are thinner, lighter, faster, portable and easier than computers which are heavy, not
portable, slower and so on. We can easily see the people using iPads in the private and
governmental buildings. For these reasons mentioned above using iPads in education is a

good option for the all educators in the educational institutes. All educational websites
and systems have their iPad applications to reach easily just touching and sliding. For
getting the best result and efficiency from any kind of new system and program, attending
and getting their tutorial services are very important. In daily life whatever we purchase
any items especially electronics, we read the instructions to find out how to use it easily.
The education is not irrelevant and not apart from this reality that if educators want to get
result from using iPads, they must know how to use it perfectly via attending their
training sessions in workshops or webinars. First of all the principals as the leaders in the
schools must be get well equipped to be a good sample for the teachers and students. As
the mentioned in the article that the principals effects are very crucial on the teachers and
students. The principals, school administrators are the reflections of the schools. If the
principal knows how to use iPads in the school for her/his daily routines, teachers will
use it or try to use it effectively for giving tasks in the classrooms and projects as
homework at home. The best point I liked most of this article is as one of the results of
this study that Regardless of age, years of experience in school administration and in
education, highest degree earned, school size, or gender, school administrators
responded similarly to items in this study. School administrators responded somewhat
differently to the self-reported level of iPad skills and knowledge by school
classification Dogan, B., & Almus, K. (2014). It is very important that all school
administrators are on the same page that brings the success in education. IPad using
should be increased and supported by the administrators, principals and lead persons at
the schools with the best training opportunities for the administrator, teachers and of
course students.

References;
Dogan, B., & Almus, K. (2014). School Administrators Use of iPads: Impact of Training
and Attitudes Toward School Use.Computers in the Schools, 31(3), 233250.
doi:10.1080/07380569.2014.932660
Dawson, C., & Rakes, G. C. (2003). The influence of principals technology training on
the integration of technology into schools. Journal of Research on Technology in
Education, 36(1), 2949.