164 TECHNOLOGY FOR PREPARATION PROGRAMS
When subjected to a t-test of independent means, a mean comparison of the administrator
and teacher groups yielded differences between groups that were significant at the p < .001
level, with teachers receiving higher scores than administrators on both instruments. There
was a significant effect for job role on the Stages of Adoption Instrument, t(103.602) = -
4.902, p < .001, and a significant effect for job role on the Concerns Based Adoption Model
Instrument, t(108.802) = -3.663, p < .001. As the Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances was
significant, p <.001, the variances for both comparisons were not homogeneous and the more
robust Welch’s t-test statistic in the equal variances not assumed row was used for both t-
tests. These statistics are illustrated in Table 2:
Table 2. Significance of Mean Comparison.Cohen (1988) hesitantly defined effect sizes as "small, d = .2," "medium, d = .5," and
"large, d = .8", stated that "there is a certain risk inherent in offering conventional operational
definitions for those terms for use in power analysis in as diverse a field of inquiry as
behavioral science" (p. 25). Using Cohen’s system, this finding (d=.54) is of medium effect
for the Stages of Adoption instrument and of medium effect (d=.40) for the CBAM-LOU
instrument. Slavin (1990), an expert in educational evaluation considered effect size above
0.25 large enough to be educationally significant.
Perhaps the most useful and relevant interpretation of effect size for this sample is to
examine the percent of nonoverlap of the administrators group's scores with those of the
teacher group, see Cohen (1988, pp. 21-23) for more complete details on measures of
nonoverlap. According to Cohen, an effect size of .05 (.54) indicates a nonoverlap of 33% in
the two distributions for the Stages of Adoption Instrument and an effect size of .4 indicates a
nonoverlap of 27.4% in the two distributions for the CBAM-LoU. instrument.
IMPLICATIONS
While limited in generalizability, this study does indicate a significant difference, p <.001,
in technology adoption between administrators and teachers for this district. The teachers
have a significantly higher level of technology adoption than administrators.
Findings from previous studies also indicate that diffusion of technology innovation is
not as prevalent nationally in administration as administrators or professors of education
administration would wish (Hancock, 2008). The focus of educational technology preparation
programs has long been on teacher education and not administration. Equal attention must be
paid to pre-service and in-service administration programs (Brooks-Young, 2002).