JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW

North American University

Education Department
M.Ed. in Educational Leadership and M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction
EDUC 5324
Name: Alper Ciftci

Date: 7/3/15

Cite the reviewed article in APA format:

Waxman, H., Boriack, A., Yuan-Hsuan, L., & MacNeil, A. (2013). Principals'
Perceptions of the Importance of Technology in Schools. Contemporary Educational
Technology, 4(3), 187-196.
INTRODUCTION
Research Questions (if research questions are not specifically mentioned, what is the
theoretical background or overarching theme):
Does both gender and years of experience influence how principals perceive the functions
of technology in their schools? Do they affect the technology leadership of principals,
which may influence the success of technology implementation in schools?
Purpose of the research:
There are some researches that examine the principals` perceptions of the technology but
there are no enough studies that specifically focus on how much they think the
technology usage is important. On previous studies, most of them used yes or no
survey questions to examine the principals` perception on technology planning, access,
and orientations but in this study open-ended, cognitive question that allows for the test
of principals` views. In addition, other studies focus more on types of schools; however
this present study focused on principal characteristics such as experience and gender
instead.
METHODOLOGY
What is the methodology for the research or approach used to understand the issue?
Provide information regarding the following:
Participants:
In total, 310 principals from a large area in the southwest region of the United States

responded questions. 126 of them are males and 184 of them are females. 104 principals
have 0-3 years of experience, 82 of them have 4-7 years, 55 participants have 18-11
years, 32 participants have 12-15 years, and 31 of them have greater than 15 years of
experience.
Procedures:
Graduate students in the Educational Leadership program, urban doctoral-granting
university located in the south central region of the U.S. administrated the questionnaire.
To reach this goal, students are trained how to administrate the questions and how to
interview a specific number of school principals.
Data Collection Methods/Data Source:
For this study, only the data from the responses were used. There were two questions
asked participants; Has technology had an impact in your school? and If so, in what
specific ways has it made a difference?.
Data Analysis:
First, a process of data reduction is used to analyze the interview data as a beginning. The
responses were read many times to better understand and become a familiar with
collected data. Then, the data coded into some categories. After this process, another
researcher coded % 10 sample of these responses to determine the consistency of the
coding.

RESULTS
Findings or Results (or main points of the article):
According to survey results, the highest percentage of participants discussed using
technology for communication. (34.5%) The next highest percentage was 27.7%. 27.7%
of participants believed that technology is using for instruction in the classroom or
school. The results for the major functions of technology by gender state that both males
and females believed that technology in school is used for communication purposes
mostly. (33% and 36%) The next highest percentage for males and females is 33% and
25% on instruction area. Finally, this survey shows that whether you have more
experience or not, almost all principals in this survey believed that communication and
instruction were the two majors with the highest percentage for function of technology in

school.
DISCUSSIONS
Conclusions/Implications (for your profession):
As a result of this study, school principals are facing with how to integrate the technology
in their schools. For this purpose, they need to support this idea or goal. In our society,
technology usage is increasing gradually and there is no way to stop it. That is why;
having an experience and training for technology usage is one of main requirement to be
a school leader. According to this study, school principals need to support their teachers
to help them integrate technology. Of course to do this, they need to keep up with the
latest technology. The result from this study suggests that principals role on technology
is essential for carrying out communication, instruction, data sharing and management. In
addition, principals need to take leadership role in planning for the purchase and
implementation of it in their schools.
Finally, this study states that principals to achieve this goal need to be prepared by
preparation programs so that they can train and help their teachers to implement these
goals in their schools and classrooms.

REFLECTIONS
Students Reflections (changes to your understanding; implications for your
school/work):
Actually, I was already using technology for my current work efficiently but I did not
know that using technology for our life or school, current workplace is important.
Especially for principals it is really important to being a real leader because if we do not
know how to use it, how will we expect from our staff to be able to use it?. From now on,
I decided that I am going to use it more and I will go to some training programs to learn
latest technology tool to use in my current work so that I can train my staff and support
them in this area better.