Digital textbooks: school librarians' stages of concerns in initial implementation

Introduction. A legislative mandate to adopt digital textbooks in Florida provides an opportunity to identify concerns school librarians have regarding digital textbook implementation. Method. The stages of concern questionnaire was used to identify stages of concern among Florida school librarians about their potential role in this implementation. Analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the sample and the distribution of responses to each question. Questions were separated into seven separate stages, with key differences analysed using the stages of concern profiles and the analysis of variance test. Results. Results indicate that participants conform to the non-user profile, which has higher unconcerned (Stage 0), informational concerns (Stage 1) and personal concerns (Stage 2). It is also found that school librarians' restrictive schedules and heavy workloads prevent them from studying new innovations in particular digital textbooks. Intensified personal concerns (Stage 2) suggest potential resistance to digital textbooks. Conclusions. These findings could provide librarians as educators an opportunity to establish more interest in digital textbooks and to discuss those textbooks' impact on teaching and learning. More broadly, the findings can provide some implications and recommendations to help educational Digital textbooks: school librarians’ stages of concerns in initial implementation http://www.informationr.net/ir/19-2/paper625.html[7/10/2014 2:35:00 PM] policy makers and school administrators identify issues related to expanding digital textbooks.