Barriers Perceived By Administrators And Faculty Regarding The Use Of Distance Education Technologies In Preservice Programs For Secondary Agricultural Education Teachers

Abstract

A principal components analysis was used to develop an instrument that identified barrier factors toward distance education. The barrier factors of agricultural educators were compared between educators in the decision stage and educators in the implementation stage of distance education technology adoption. Respondents were grouped into decision stage or implementation stage of distance education technology adoption according to Rogers' (1995) innovation-decision process. Statistically significant differences existed for various technology types between groups' barrier factor scores. The following conclusions were formulated from this study: (a) respondents in the decision stage showed significantly more agreement toward inhibiting barriers than those in the implementation stage for all barrier factors, except expense; (b) significant differences in barrier factors were found between the participants in the decision stage and those in the implementation stage for all of the distance education technology types, except digital conferencing; (c) faculty time, faculty rewards, faculty workload, administrative support, cost barriers, course quality, student contact, and equipment concerns were considered barriers for a majority of the respondents, and (d) nine barrier factors were extracted and all were considered reliable, except the expense factor.