A study of Chinese technical and vocational college teachers' adoption and gratification in new technologies

Abstract The problem motivating this research is the rapid introduction of educational technologies and the strong push to use new technologies in technical and vocational training in China coupled with varied responses and uneven adoption of new tools on the part of practitioners. This study investigated the factors that influence technical and vocational college teachers' adoption and appreciation of information and communication technology (ICT) in China using the technology adoption and gratification (TAG) model. At total of 535 teachers from public technical and vocational colleges were surveyed using a purposive sampling procedure. The survey data were analyzed through structural equation modeling. Findings suggest that the use of ICT had three primary determinants: teaching purpose, research purpose and academic purpose. Technical and vocational college teachers' technology adoption and gratification was directly and indirectly predicted by their computer self-efficacy, intention to use, perceived ease of use and usefulness of ICT. Most importantly, the TAG model accounted for 77% of the variance in teachers' gratification using those predictive variables. This research successfully applied the TAG model and it further fosters recommendations for future investigations. This study contributes to theoretical, methodical and practical understandings of the use of ICT in technical and vocational education, which has been much less explored than in K-12 education and university settings.