Characteristic beliefs of K--12 teachers that influence their decision to implement GIS into classroom practice

This research investigated the beliefs of K-12 classroom teachers about their choice to implement/integrate (Geographical Information Systems [GIS] software) into their classroom practice. GIS is a tool within the subset of digital information technologies that allows the user to layer information from multiple sources on maps, visualize the information, and propose conclusions based on the information.;Findings indicate attitude and subjective norm constructs associated with a teacher's beliefs about themselves and their peers was the most influential on teacher's beliefs about technology usage. Teachers were found to have very positive outlooks on the need, use, and benefit of using technology. Demographic data indicated a strong association with their means to learn to implement technology, their level of education, how they learned about and to use GIS. The greatest influence on their decision to use GIS was found to be the benefit to students' critical thinking, and decision-making. They indicated GIS was also beneficial in presenting highly-visual data sets across curricular areas. New users of GIS need to know it can be time consuming, difficult to learn, but exceedingly beneficial. These teachers rated resources as the most important barrier; but they ranked their individual personal efforts as the most important barrier to technology use.;Implications from this research concern the means to encourage positive technology beliefs, ways for instructional designers to make professional development more relevant for teachers and strategies to promote positive technology change agents.;Two theories informed this research. Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (TpB) identifies the overarching influences comprising attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control that lead to intentions and actions. Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory identifies self-efficacy as the influence for teachers' decisions to use a particular technology. Descriptive statistics were used. Belief measures were determined by percent frequency and confirmed with Chi-square (X2). ANOVA was conducted to determine patterns in the demographic data to three TpB constructs. Coding for open-ended responses revealed associated themes leading to GIS use. Barriers to technology implementation were rated and ranked.