Does social capital matter? A quantitative approach to examining technology infusion in schools

Changing teachers’ perceptions about the value of technology and equipping them with appropriate knowledge and skills in pedagogical use of technology is often regarded as a key determinant of success in technology infusion in schools. However, recent studies have indicated that changing teachers’ epistemological beliefs about the use of technology in teaching and learning may not necessarily bring about change in their practice, and that technology implementation in schools can be affected by other instrumental forces, such as collegial trust, support for risk taking and access to expertise within an organization. In this article, we delineate collegial trust, access to expertise, willingness to take risks, etc. as manifestations of social capital in an organization. We argue that social capital plays a pivotal role in leveraging pedagogical change in schools. To gauge teachers’ self-perceived change in their pedagogical use of technology, we take a constructivist perspective to explore how technology serves as a tool for facilitating students to articulate their thoughts, to explore and construct knowledge, and to become more autonomous in learning. The results of our questionnaire survey indicate that (1) the social capital of a school had a strong direct effect on teachers’ self-perceived changes in their pedagogical use of technology, and that the effect of social capital on pedagogical change outweighed that of teachers’ perceived effectiveness of professional development; (2) teachers’ receptivity towards technology use had a direct effect on their perceived effectiveness of professional development but a very weak effect on fostering changes in their pedagogical use of technology; and (3) the social capital of a school had a direct influence on teachers’ receptivity towards technology use and their perceived effectiveness of professional development. To further unfold the complexity of technology implementation, more in-depth qualitative studies on how social forces shape the change process are deemed necessary.