The Adoption of Microcomputers for Instruction: Implications for Emerging Instructional Media Implementation

Using the five-stage innovation decision-making process established by Rogers, it was determined that the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania business education teachers have adopted microcomputer technology and use it to deliver instruction on a routine basis. In addition, it was determined that three factors demonstrated a significant relationship with adoption behavior, even though they had a low ability to predict such behavior. However, it appears that three other factors, i.e., attitude towards microcomputers, the characteristics of microcomputers, and a critical threshold mark for the adoption of microcomputers, may also have influenced the decision of Pennsylvania business education teachers to adopt microcomputers in their classroom. These findings suggest that, perhaps, in the adoption of a new instructional method, what really matters are individual's attitude towards the new method, the characteristics of the new method, and the critical threshold mark for adopting the specific method.