Factors affecting early childhood education teachers' technology use: A path model

This research, which was conducted to determine the factors that affect early childhood education teachers' technology use in the classroom settings, was carried out with correlational model. In this research, conducted within the scope of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), early childhood education teacher's technology use in the classroom settings were examined by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, behavioral intention, anxiety, attitudes towards use, facilitating conditions, job relevance, perceived enjoyment, self-efficacy, challenging conditions and age, educational background, preservice/inservice training and professional experience. 442 early childhood education teachers work in public and private schools in 2017-2018 academic year participated in the study. The data was collected through ̈Technology in Early Childhood ̈ survey and ̈Teachers' Technology Acceptance and Use Scale (TTAUS)¨. Analysis were performed by using LISREL version 8.8 and SPSS version 24 software packages. Path Analysis was used to test the research hypotheses and the results indicate that the tested theoretical model has acceptable fit indices. The results showed that; the theoretical model explained teachers' attitudes towards technology use with 75% variance by perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived enjoyment and job relevance. Further, teachers' intention to technology use was explained with 72% variance by attitude towards use, perceived enjoyment, job relevance and anxiety. However, the path coefficients from facilitating conditions, challenging conditions, behavioral intention and attitudes towards use to technology usage were not found statistically significant. Keywords: early childhood, early childhood education teachers, technology, unified theory of acceptance and use of technology, path analysis