As ICT is increasingly permeating all aspects of everyday life, it is apparent that education cannot leap behind. In this article we longitudinally investigate a much-debated obligatory full-scale implementation of tablet devices in a large secondary school. We adopt a Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) approach to verify the dynamic nature of students' acceptance of the tablet as a learning tool at three waves of data collection, both at pre-and short and long-term post-adoption stages. The results clearly indicate the evolutionary nature of the acceptance process, challenging the adequacy of crosssectional approaches to technology adoption. In the pre-adoption stage, attitude appears as a key uptake factor, whereas three months later, due to practical and technical constraints, the attention shifts to subjective norm and perceived behavioral control. Finally, six months after introduction indicative traces of habituation appear, raising concerns on the suitability of the TPB in established post-adoption circumstances.
January 6 th , 2014Dear Editor(s), Please find attached the revised manuscript "Student Acceptance of Tablet Devices in Secondary Education: A three-wave longitudinal cross-lagged case study". This study draws upon the Theory of Planned Behaviour to design a cross-lagged longitudinal study that addresses the over-time interplay between pre-and post-adoption key uptake factors, i.e. attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control.We have taken into account and have responded to all of the reviewer comments, as requested in the decision e-mail. We elaborate on these issues in the rebuttal, which is part of the current manuscript.We declare that this manuscript has not been published previously and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. In addition, we assure that all authors have fully participated in the research and the article preparation and both of us have approved the submission.Looking forward to the results and feedback of the review procedure.
Yours sincerely, Cédric Courtois, PhDCovering Letter Dear editor(s), Dear reviewers, First of all, we insist on thanking you for the time you have invested in providing feedback on the manuscript and allowing for the opportunity to submit a revised version. Your helpful comments have led to multiple modifications that are outlined one-by-one below.
Reviewer 1Comment: "Page 7, line #5: (This is H1) here the word "wave" is used. It is explained later on in the text, but it would be helpful to explain it here where the word is used first."
Response:The concept of wave is now explained in the introduction: "Three research waves, i.e. distinct moments of data collection, are analyzed: the pre-adoption expectation in September 2012, followed by post-adoption experiences measured at November 2012 and March 2013."Comment: "With regard to hypotheses 5, in particular 5b, I was a bit puzzled about the following. The authors assume a positive correlation between the sensed strength of the subjective norm and positive a...
