Date of Award

8-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Education

First Advisor

Jerri W. Jackson, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Tammy Crouse, Ed.D.

Third Advisor

Amy Jones, Ph.D.

Abstract

As the presence of technology increases within classrooms, teachers are evolving in their instruction; however, teacher utilization of technology within classroom instructional practice is not consistently applied for the educational benefit of students. The acquisition and implementation of classroom technology across rural and non-rural schools are not equitable due to a lack of financial resources and infrastructure (Sundeen & Sundeen, 2013). This mixed-method research study, with an emphasis on quantitative data, utilized a Likert-scale survey examining the thoughts, perceptions, and opinions of 667 K-12 teachers on technology access, support, and professional development along with a questionnaire of nine elementary and secondary instructional leaders and districtlevel technology coordinators in rural and non-rural Alabama. Research questions one through four were quantitative and the Mann-Whitney U test, with a significance level of p < 0.05, was used to determine if significant differences existed between rural and non-rural teachers. The researcher determined that significant differences existed between rural and non-rural teachers for two of the four research questions. The quantitative findings were supported by qualitative data collected from instructional leaders through a questionnaire. Several themes arose during this analysis including non-rural educators citing more abilities to fund the acquisition of technology from individual school-level sources.

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