Innovation Determinants and Barriers: A Tri-Perspective Analysis of IT Appropriation within an Early Childhood Education and Care Organisation

Abstract

Empirical studies on information technology (IT) in early childhood education and care organisations are scant, despite an increasing number of these organisations choosing to innovate with IT. This paper presents a framework to understand the appropriation of IT as an innovation within such an organisation. The framework consists of three perspectives on innovation: an individualist, a structuralist and an interactive process perspective. While the first focuses on concepts such as leadership, IT champions, previous IT exposure, the second focuses on organisation size, parents as stakeholders, competitors, government compliance and regulatory requirements. The third perspective views the innovation as a dynamic phenomenon of change, produced by the continuous interaction of the innovation content, its context, and the appropriation process as related in an interactive process. We demonstrate the framework’s applicability and determine that the three perspectives supplement each other and together provide a deeper understanding of the IT appropriation process in terms of innovation determinants and barriers.

Tablet Technology and Cloud Storage as Evidence of Pedagogic Development in Pre-service Teacher Education

“…Laptops again were the main source of technology used (33.2 per cent) followed by school computers or school-owned devices (29 per cent), with only 2.6 per cent (n = 5) identifying that they did not use technology on placement at all. This data is noteworthy, given the historical reluctance to use technology in early childhood settings (Plumb & Kautz, 2015), with patterns of technology use during placement relatively consistent between the whole cohort of pre-service teachers and those specifically training as early childhood teachers.…”

“…It was acknowledged that early childhood contexts had varying protocols and expectations regarding the use of technology to capture digital evidence of learning, with disparity and inconsistency between what was considered appropriate in early childhood settings evident. Given that many early childhood contexts (see for example the work of Plumb & Kautz, 2015) are grappling with the role of digital documentation of learning, their uncertainty is likely to impact on what pre-service teachers are seeing as evidence of practice and in the technologies they are permitted to use during their professional experience placement.…”

Early childhood educators’ attitudes and beliefs around the use of touchscreen technologies by children under three years of age

“…For example, Palaiologou’s international study (, p. 5) on ECE teachers’ dispositions towards digital devices in play‐based pedagogy identified three key themes: task‐behavioural orientation (tasks teachers complete with digital devices); emotional orientation (teachers’ feelings towards digital devices); and coping orientation (teachers’ intentions when using digital devices). Plumb and Kautz (, p. 11), in contrast, developed a tri‐perspective framework for categorising the factors preventing the integration of technology in ECE. They presented three broad perspectives impacting these factors: the “individualist” (internal characteristics), the “structuralist” (organisational characteristics) and the “interactive” (technology integration seen as a process and the interrelationships between factors).…”

(Digitale) Elternzusammenarbeit in Kindertageseinrichtungen während der Corona-Pandemie. Digitalisierungsschub oder verpasste Chance?

“…B. Interesse, Ängste). Somit können auch die von den Fachkräften antizipierten Hinderungsgründe in der Umsetzung als Einstellungsmerkmale gefasst werden (Plumb und Kautz 2015 ). Erweitert wird das Modell durch Aspekte der Unterstützung in der Implementierung.…”

“… 2014 ; Kerckaert et al. 2015 ; Lindahl und Folkesson 2012 ; Plumb und Kautz 2015 ). Gleichzeitig wird der Einsatz von IKT in Kitas im politischen und wissenschaftlichen Diskurs kontrovers diskutiert (Fröhlich-Gildhoff und Fröhlich-Gildhoff 2017 ).…”