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: Meltem Yilmaz

Date: 5/06/2016

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):
1) What are principals' perceptions of the importance of technology?
2) Do principals' perceptions of technology differ by years of experience and
gender?

Purpose of the research:

The purpose of this study is to investigate how principals' perceptions and principal
characteristics such as years of experience and gender relate to the major functions of
technology in their schools. In this study, it includes an open-ended, cognitive interview
questions which allow the examination of principals' perspective and orientations toward
technology.

METHODOLOGY
What is the methodology for the research or approach used to understand the
issue? Provide information regarding the following:

Participants: A convenience sample of 310 principals from a large metropolitan

area in the southwest region of the United States. The sample formed of 126
males and 184 females. A range of years of experience was present with 104
participants having 0-3 years of experience, 82 participants having 4-7 years, 55
participants having 8-11 years, 32 participants having 12-15 years, and 31

participants having greater than 15 years of experience.

Procedures: 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. They 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 Collection Methods/Data Source: For this study, the data from interviews
was used. The interview questions were Has technology had an impact in your
school?" and "If so, in what specific ways has it made a difference?
Data Analysis: 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 (Cohens kappa = .94).

RESULTS
Findings or Results (or main points of the article):
The principals responses for the major functions of technology were grouped into six
categories and they are showed in Table 1:
One-third (35%) of the principals indicated that technology was used as a primary
communication tool.
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%).
The fourth category 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.
The fifth category was using technology for administrative tasks, such as taking
attendance (10%).
The last category was using technology for student learning (10%).
Purpose of this study to investigate how principals' perceptions and characteristics
( gender and experience) related to the major functions of technology in their schools.
So, tables are provided to see these relations. Table 2. (Principals Perceptions of the
Major Function of Technology by Sex ) displays the highest percentage of males and
females discussed using technology for communication (33% and 36%, respectively).
The next highest percentage of males and females felt that technology was used for

instruction (33% and 25%, respectively).

When we look at the other four categories males and females differed in their
perceptions: 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%).
Last table is about 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). The other
four categories showed varied percentages by years of experience and they are
displayed in Table 3.

DISCUSSIONS
Conclusions/Implications (for your profession):
Nowadays, technology is amazingly developing, so school leaders need to catch up with
ongoing development of technology and become effective technology leaders in their
schools. This helps them to know how to support the integration of technology into
productive learning activities and how to evaluate the use of technology within their
schools (Yu & Durrington, 2006). In addition, it effects the teachers and students to use
and integrate technology more effectively. Based on these advantages, administrators
need to improve their technology skills, knowledge and their understandings of how
technology is valuable in teaching to improving students learning to encourage teachers
to use technology in their teaching.
As this study indicates that principles view technology as important for carrying out
communication and instruction. Also, they find the importance of using technology for
data sharing and management, as a resource, for administrative tasks and for students
learning. As I mentioned before, principals need to be technology leaders to be a role
model of using effective technology for teachers and support them to use integration of
technology into the classroom. For this reason, principals should consider to purchase
and implementation of new technology in their schools (Anderson & Dexter, 2005; Peck,
Mullen, Lashley, & Eldridge, 2011).
This study also investigated principals perceptions of the major functions of technology
by sex and years of experience. These factors may effect the leadership that principals
to be model to provide new technology and implementation of technology in their
schools. In terms of being technology leaders, principals should attend training
programs, principals preparation programs to improve their technology leadership and
support the better implementation of technology.

REFLECTIONS
Students Reflections (changes to your understanding; implications for your
school/work):
According to articles, I totally agree that principals are playing significant role to guide
effectively their staffs, parents, students and faculty. That is why principals as technology
leaders need to improve their knowledge, skills and their vision of educational
technology and the usage of it in the school systems. Because, technology provides
many opportunities. Principals and teachers should take advantage of the technology to
provide productive school environment and effective learning for students. Based on that
there are many programs are offering technology training to catch up ongoing on
technology for teachers and principals.
To sum up, technology is an amazing tool especially in education that all school
members should take advantage of it to make instruction, communication, data sharing
and management, administrative tasks, and student learning effective and easy.