Appendix - Description Of Indicators Ordered Alphabetically

Availability

Teachers on three versions of the questionnaires (1,3,4) were asked how available both technical and instructional support were when they needed it. Teachers based their answers on the following scale: '1' = not available; '2' = sometimes; '3' = frequently; '4' = mostly; '5'=almost always.

To create an overall availability measure, the original scale was recoded where '0' = not available; '1' = sometimes; '2' = frequently; '3' = mostly; '4'=almost always. Ratings of technical and instructional support availability were then summed. The result is an indicator of teachers' perceptions of overall availability which ranges in score from 0 to 8, where '8' indicates teachers perceived both technical and instructional support as available "almost always" when they needed it.

Change in Last 5 Years

Three versions of the teachers' questionnaires (2,3,4) asked teachers the following: compared to 5 years ago, are using computers more or less frequently in the following ways? (a) trying out new software or technologies; (b) using computers for class preparation (i.e., handouts, overheads); (c) using computers for non-work activities; (d) assigning students to use computers; (e) suggesting that students use computers in their projects. Teachers answered the question based on a four point scale where '1' = less frequently now, '2' = stayed the same, '3' = more frequently now, and '4' = much more now.

The change indicator was created by taking the sum of teachers' ratings across the five activities listed. Teachers who had less than 5 years of teaching experience were excluded from the analysis. Scores range from 0 to 20 where '20' indicates teachers said they performed all five activities much more now than they did 5 years ago.

Frequency of Technology Use With Students

The teacher computer use indicator represents how frequently teachers use computers with students. As illustrated in Table 13, a score of '0' indicates the teacher does not use computers either professionally or with students; this is true for 7% of the teachers in our sample. If teachers use computers with students, they were to indicate whether this use occurred in the course in which they felt most satisfied with their teaching (the course where they accomplished their teaching goals most often). These questions included information on actual technology use with students. Thus, it was thought that responses related to the class in which teachers felt they accomplished their teaching goals most, would best represent the teacher's beliefs and use. A score of '2' indicates the teacher uses computers with students, but not in the class with which they are most satisfied. The highest score a teacher can receive on the teacher use indicator is a '6' which indicates the teacher uses technology with students 41 times or more during a school year in the class with which they are most satisfied; about 16% of teachers in the sample received this score.

TABLE 13: DESCRIPTION OF TEACHER USE INDICATOR
Teacher Use Value	Description of Use	% of Teachers
0	Teacher does not use  computers, either professionally or with students	7
1	Teacher uses computers  only professionally	22
2	Teacher uses computers  with students, but not in class with which they feel most satisfied	10
3	Teacher uses computers  with students in the class with which they are most satisfied 1 to 10 times  per school year	23
4	Teacher uses computers  with students in the class with which they are most satisfied 11 to 20 times  per school year	10
5	Teacher uses computers  with students in the class with which they are most satisfied 21 to 40 times  per school year (weekly)	12
6	Teacher uses computers  with students in the class with which they are most satisfied 41 or more  times per school year (bi-weekly)	16

 

School Level

l represents the level of the school where '1' is elementary schools, '2' is middle schools and '3' is high schools. This variable was created by examining the median grade of the school. Initially, school grade levels were from the sampling database, which was constructed from the QED database. This information was then updated with responses provided by the school principal. Elementary schools were those schools with median grade ranges of 5.5 or below; middle schools have median grade ranges of 5.6-9.4; and high schools are those having median grade ranges of 9.5 or above.

School Control

The type of school is based on information from the QED database. The original categories were '1' = Public, '2' = Catholic and '3' = Other, where other includes other parochial besides Catholic, as well as non-sectarian private schools. This variable was collapsed into a dichotomous variable where '1' = Public and '2' = Private.

SES

School socio-economic status was obtained using QED data based on the income level of households within the schools' zip code. The original variable was based on a five-point scale where '0' = not classified, '1' = low SES, '2' = low to average SES, '3' = average SES, '4' = average to high SES and '5' = high SES. These categories where then collapsed into a trichotomous variable where '1' indicates low SES, '2' indicates average SES, and '3' indicates 'high SES'.

Teachers' Expertise

Because we recognized that a teacher's current level of skill and years of experience using technology might influence their need for technology support, we assigned all 2,251 respondents a skill level, ranging from 1 to 4, based on a self-report of their computer skills. The seven skills listed ranged from basic operating system skills, such as knowing how to "copy files from one disk to another" and "display the directory ofa disk," to more complex skills, such as knowing how to "create a new database and establish fields and screen layouts," "imbed graphics into a word-processor document," "prepare a slide show using presentation software," "use a World Wide Web search engine" and "develop a multimedia document using HyperStudio or similar authoring software." Their responses that they either did, did not, or somewhat knew how to execute that skill were assigned a score. Their score on each of these seven items were averaged. The ranges of average score were then split into four divisions that fell along natural breaks and very roughly approximated quartiles.

TABLE 14: PERCENTAGE OF TEACHERS AT EACH SKILL LEVEL
Technical Skill Level	Percent of Total
Level 1	26
Level 2	31
Level 3	25
Level 4	18

 

Variety of Teacher Professional Use

Our variety of professional use measure was based on the following question answered by teachers: In which of the following ways do you use computers in preparing for your classes or in other professional activities? Eight types of activities were listed: record or calculate student grades; make handouts for students; correspond with parents; write lesson plans or related notes; get information or pictures from the Internet for use in lessons; use camcorders, digital cameras or scanners to prepare for class; exchange computer files with other teachers; and post student work, suggestions for resources, or ideas and opinions on the World Wide Web. Teachers answered the questions based on a four point scale where '1' = do not use, '2' = occasionally, '3' = weekly and '4' = more often.

The original scale was recoded so that '0' = do not use, '1' = occasionally, '2' = weekly and '3' = more often. The scores on all eight activities were summed to create an overall variety of use index. Scores range from 0 to 24 where '24' indicates all eight activities were done "more often" by teachers and a score of '0' indicates teachers had done none of the eight activities listed.