TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION AND PEDAGOGY IN KINDERGARTEN TO GRADE 5

At a small, suburban elementary school in the western United States, teachers in kindergarten through fifth grade (Grades K-5) were not consistently implementing technology within instruction. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of Grades K-5 teachers at the elementary school regarding barriers and challenges of technology integration within classroom instruction. The study's conceptual framework consisted of Mishra and Koehler's technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework and Bandura's conceptualization of self-efficacy. The research questions concerned the perceptions of teachers who teach within a 1:1 classroom where there is one device for every student, regarding their ability to consistently integrate technology within classroom instruction and what pedagogical practices they perceive as necessary to do so. Purposeful sampling was employed in the selection process, and to accomplish this, inclusion criteria were used to select participants. Interviews and sentence completion were then used to gather data from the 11 participants. Participants' responses were coded and categorized into themes. The results found that participants believed formal training and collaboration would give them the skills and knowledge necessary to integrate technology into their classroom instruction. The study may promote positive social change in districts by influencing professional development (PD) practices to support technology-integrated instruction. Teachers will be better able to integrate technology into instruction continuously, and school administration will be able to provide better ongoing support, which will better prepare students for the 21st century.