How Individuals React Towards Technology

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Rashmi Kumar

I would like to investigate attributes such as: how many encounters with a given technology are necessary before an individual becomes comfortable using it? Is this truly an individual characteristic or is it possible to identify a general threshold? In what ways should introduction to a given technology be tailored to increase individual self-efficacy? In cases, where a technology is adopted as a supportive tool for content knowledge, how do we know whether it is in fact increasing an individual’s understanding of the content? E.g., how does representation of knowledge through a web based medium change understanding of content? Finally, I am interested in exploring what makes people resist use of technology and why?

Categories: Session Proposals |

About Rashmi Kumar

I am interested in three broad areas of research: STEM Learning, Instructional Technology, and Teacher Education. I am involved in designing, implementing and evaluating technology rich learning programs. My dissertation (2011) explored parentsÕ initiatives in supporting their childrenÕs interest and participation in STEM disciplines.

1 Response to How Individuals React Towards Technology

  1. Peter Collopy says:
    April 24, 2012 at 5:22 pm

    There’s some literature in science and technology studies on non-users of technologies, particularly in the book How Users Matter. You might also want to look at Nathan Ensmenger’s chapter “Resistance is Futile? Reluctant and Selective Users of the Internet” in The Commercialization of the Internet and Its Impact on American Business. And David Edgerton’s Shock of the Old is a wonderful study of the continued use of old technologies that challenges the assumption that not using new technologies is necessarily an act of resistance; often, there are existing tools that are good enough. Indeed, I think histories of marketing suggest that demand for new inventions generally has to be created. All of which is to say that people’s decision not to adopt a new technology is often not a decision at all, while the decision to adopt technology generally does require an explanation.

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