The Implications of Teachers' Professional Attributes on Assimilating a Computerized Learning and Management System in an Israeli School: A Case Study

摘要

Assimilating processes of change in teaching methods and their application in school entail considerable difficulty. The teachers' ability and skills as a professional-pedagogic entity in the process of change is the first factor for the occurrence of radical change. This study examines the extent to which teachers' professional attributes predict resistance to change when assimilating a computerized learning management and teaching system (LMS) in school. Teachers from an experimental high school in Israel, which is participating in a comprehensive reform to integrate a computerized LMS system into schools in Israel, participated in this study. A questionnaire regarding resistance to change was distributed to 60 teachers and analyzed using path analysis in structural equation modeling with the statistical AMOS 7.0 (Analysis of Moment Structures) software (Arbuckle, 2006). The findings indicate that a high level of computer literacy amongst teachers predicts low resistance to change; school seniority predicts high resistance to change, as does a key role in school. The contribution of the study lies in understanding that, till now, these attributes were considered to be background attributes. The study identifies their unique impact on the teachers' readiness to assimilate change in school.