Elementary Teachers’ Use of 1:1 Tablets in Lesson Planning and Presentation on a Western Pacific Island

Abstract

The Ministry of Education on a Western Pacific island invested in an expensive 1:1 tablet program providing elementary teachers and students with a tablet but had not determined if the program produced desired positive changes in the teachers’ instructional practices of lesson planning and lesson presentation. Guided by experiential learning theory, this causal–comparative study’s purpose was to determine if the 1:1 tablet program resulted in changes in elementary teachers’ use of technology in their lesson planning and lesson presentation practices. We analyzed pre and postimplementation lesson planning and lesson presentation data, collected from 63 elementary teachers, using repeated measures t -tests. Results showed teachers’ use of technology in lesson planning and lesson presentation increased significantly following implementation of the 1:1 tablet initiative. These findings suggest that the 1:1 tablet program created an environment that positively supported technology-driven instruction for teachers as well as students. In light of these results, the 1:1 tablet program appears to be a worthwhile initiative for the education system on the island that should be continued and possibly expanded even if public financial resources are scarce.