An investigation of secondary education students' acceptance of tablet computers

The purpose of this study is to examine the acceptance level of secondary education school students' acceptance of tablet computers in terms of different variables. In order to achieve this goal, the students were investigated for their acceptance level of tablet computer according to gender, grade level, achievement score, internet connection ownership, daily internet usage time and daily tablet usage time. The survey model was used in the research. The survey model is aimed to reveal existing situations for students to accept tablet computers. The students of the Anatolian and Science High Schools of Denizli Province are studying in the 2016-2017 academic year. High school students' acceptance levels of tablet computers were tried to be determined by "Acceptance of Tablet PC Scale" developed by Güngören et al., (2014). Scale is a 5-point likert type that includes four dimensions of the technology acceptance model: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude towards use, and intention to use. Data were collected from 944 students. However, since the scale was incomplete or systematic, the data of the students who produced the outlier values in the analysis were deleted by calculating with Maholanobis Distance in SPSS program. Thus, outlier data are excluded from the analysis. Accordingly, 880 students constitute the sample of the researcher. The scales were transferred to digital medium using SPSS program and analyzed in SPSS program. The level of statistical significance in the study was accepted as 0.05. Descriptive statistical methods (frequency, number, percentage, mean, standard deviation) were used for the demographic information such as gender, class level, etc. when evaluating the data. In the analysis of the data, t test was used to test the difference between the means of two independent sample groups (gender, high school type), One-way ANOVA was used to test the difference between the multiple group averages (class level, achievement score). As a conclusion of the research, it was identified that high school students are generally in an unstable attitude towards accepting tablet computers. Although most students find it easy to use tablet computers and have the skill to using them, it has been observed that the tablet computer is unstable for the effective use in course. It was identified that the acceptance level of the tablet computers of the high school students participating in the research did not differ according to the gender, the internet connection ownership at home and the daily internet usage period. It was identified that the acceptance level of the tablet computers of the students participating in the study was different according to the class level, high school, achievement score and daily tablet computer usage period. It has been determined that high school students' participating in the research the acceptance level of tablet computer is generally unstable. Students should believe that tablet computers are beneficial for the positive change of students' unstable views. Suggestions are presented according to the results obtained from the research.