Acceptance of Educational Use of Tablet Computers: A Critical View Of The FATIH Project

Abstract

In Turkey, various ICT tools were integrated into the educational environments through the FATIH Project introduced by the Ministry of National Education while studies concerned with the effective use of ICT in the educational processes began to increase in number and tablet computers were given to students and teachers within the framework of the project. Despite the effort put into the technological infrastructure, in-service training for the teachers and fulfilling other components of the project in order to help the FATIH Project reach its aim, the distribution of the tablet computers was the only action taken in terms of the services intended for the students. The attitudes of the students regarding the project need to be determined in order to ensure sustainability and help the project reach its aims. In this regard, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) becomes prominent. According to TAM, the students’ beliefs will affect the behavior of the students positively as a result of thinking that using the tablet computers is easy and beneficial while this effect will cause the students to adopt the use of the tablet computers. The study was carried out with 2023 secondary school students who were enrolled in FATIH Project pilot schools in the central province of Bartın province in the spring semester of 2014-2015 academic year. In the end of this study, the secondary education students’ acceptance levels of the educational use of the tablet computers used in the FATIH Project were examined in accordance with TAM and the scale for the acceptance of the tablet computers used in the FATIH Project in terms of educational use was developed. In addition, it has been achieved that giving tablet computers to students, training with FATIH Project technologies and increasing class level negatively affects students' acceptance of educational use of tablet PC in the FATIH Project.