Changing teachers, changing students? The impact of a teacher-focused intervention on students' computer usage, attitudes, and anxiety

• We study the impact of a classroom technology intervention on students.
• Teachers' computer attitudes/use had no effect on students.
• Intervention had positive impact on students' computer attitudes.
• Intervention had positive impact on students' computer use.
• Intervention effects on students not mediated by teacher effects.

An important purpose of integrating computer use into everyday classroom instruction is to help students approach technology as a learning tool. Effective classroom integration is dependent not only on access to computers but also teachers' implementation of computing into learning. Successful implementation, in turn, depends largely on teachers' beliefs about classroom computing. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a teacher-focused technology intervention on students' attitudes toward and use of computers as learning tools. Teachers' attitudes, anxiety, and classroom computer use are explored as mediators of this relationship. Data were collected during a technology intervention in fourth and fifth grade classrooms in an urban public school district. Results suggest that the technology intervention itself had a positive effect on students' attitudes toward and use of computers for educational purposes. There was no evidence, however, that teachers' use or attitudes had any mediating effect on this relationship. These results suggest that it is possible to increase students' attitudes toward computer use through intense interventions aimed at their teachers. Future research should further investigate the mechanisms through which this relationship exits.