Running head: THE USE ROGERS ATTRIBUTES OF DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION

THEORY TO PREDICT IPADS ACCEPTANCE AMONG SPECIAL EDUCATION

TEACHERS.

The Use Rogers Attributes of Diffusion of Innovation Theory to Predict iPads Acceptance
Among Special Education Teachers.
Adel Qahmash
Northern Illinois University
ETR 520 Introduction to Research Methods in Education
August 8, 2014

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Table of Contents
Problem to be investigated ...................................................................................................................................... 1
Purpose of the study ................................................................................................................................................... 1
Justification of the Study .......................................................................................................................................... 1
Research Question ...................................................................................................................................................... 2
Definition of Terms .................................................................................................................................................... 2
Brief Overview of the Study ................................................................................................................................... 3
Background and Review of Related Literature ................................................................................................. 3
Special Education in Saudi Arabia .................................................................................................................................... 4

Diffusion of Innovation Theory ............................................................................................................................. 5

Four main elements in the diffusion of innovation ...................................................................................................... 6
Diffusion of innovation adopters category ................................................................................................................... 6
Diffusion of Innovation Attributes ............................................................................................................................... 7

Procedures .................................................................................................................................................................. 10
Description of the research design ..................................................................................................................... 10
Description of the sample ..................................................................................................................................... 11
Description of the instruments ............................................................................................................................ 11
Explanation of the Procedures Followed ......................................................................................................... 11

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Description of Threats Internal Validity .......................................................................................................... 12

Description of External Validity ......................................................................................................................... 12
Description of Statistical Method Used ........................................................................................................... 13
Ethics and Human Relations ................................................................................................................................ 13
Possible Threats to Research Participants ....................................................................................................... 13
Time Line ................................................................................................................................................................... 14
References .................................................................................................................................................................. 15

Problem to be investigated

Purpose of the study

The purpose of the study is to investigate the acceptance of iPads for teaching purposes
among special education teachers in Saudi Arabia. The propose study guided by Rogers
attributes of innovationnamely, relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and
observability. These five attributes will be used to predict the degree of acceptance of iPad
among none-adopters of Saudi special education teachers.

Justification of the Study

Without a doubt, technology offers a huge potential benefit for students with special
needs. The integration of such assistive technologies into special education has become a
primary interest for schools, teachers, and parents (McNaughton & Light, 2013). In special
education, assistive technologies can include any device or tool that supports special needs
students with their cognitive, communication, or social skills, such as speech devices, computerassisted instruction software, and tablets (Hasselbring & Glaser, 2000). However, with the rapid
advancement of tablet devices, particularly iPads, special education teachers have considered
iPads as a tool of choice to adopt in teaching students with special needs compared to other
devices because of their size, availability of applications, media capabilities, and comparatively
low cost (Melhuish & Falloon, 2010). These powerful features make iPads unique educational
devices (Reid & Ostashewski, 2011).
Unfortunately, the lack of research on adopting assistive technology in special education
in Saudi Arabia remains a major obstacle in the development of technology integration in special

education system (Alquraini, 2010). The proposed study will focus mainly on iPad adoption, as a
new innovation by examining the degree of it is acceptance among none-adopters based on
Rogers attributes of innovation.

Research Question
1. Do Rogers attributes of innovation (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity,
trialability, and observability) as perceived by special education predict the acceptance of
iPads for teaching purposes?
2. Does gender impact the acceptance of iPads for teaching purposes?

Definition of Terms
Diffusion of Innovation: Rogers (2003) the process in which an innovation is communicated
through certain channels over time among the members of a social system (p.5).
Relative advantage: Rogers (2003) the degree to which an innovation is perceived better than
the idea is supersedes (p.15).
Relative advantage: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than the
idea it supersedes (Rogers, 2003, p. 221).
Compatibility: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with existing
value, past experiences and needs of potential adaptors (Rogers, 2003, p. 223).
Complexity: Rogers (2003) the degree to which an innovation is perceived as relatively
difficult to understand and use (p.16).
Trialability: Rogers (2003) trialability can de defined as the degree to which an innovation may
be experimented with on a limited base (p.16).

Observability as the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others (p. 16)

Brief Overview of the Study

The goal of the study is to investigate how special education teachers adopt iPads as a
new innovation tool based on Rogers attributes of innovation. This study will include 114
participants. Data will be collected via a survey based on participants demographic location.
Two techniques will be used to distribute surveys: email and paper copies. The statistical method
used in this study will be the multiple regression technique, which allows more than one
independent variable to predict one dependent variable

Background and Review of Related Literature

This study investigates the acceptance of iPads for teaching purposes among special
education teachers in Saudi Arabia. The keywords used in the search for relevant literature were
special education in Saudi Arabia, technology adoption in special education, diffusion of
innovation theory, and technology diffusion in special education. For the search strategies, I
used keywords related to my topic, then combined them with other terms, such as diffusion of
innovation + special education, technology adoption in + special education, and technology
adoption + autism. This approach resulted in good previewed articles related to my topic. I also
accessed several databases, such as ERIC, Google Scholar, ProQuest Dissertations, and NIU
database.
The literature review section provides a background for the topic by covering three areas.
The first section discusses special education in Saudi Arabia. The second section discusses
Rogers diffusion of innovation theory.

Special Education in Saudi Arabia

Prior to the 1950s, the government of Saudi Arabia had not established regulations
regarding people with disabilities and their education, which led parents to be fully responsible
providing assistance to their children (Alquraini, 2010, p. 140). In 1958, the Ministry of
Education began to provide special education services for blind students, who received education
in what was called the scientific institute (Alquraini, 2010, p. 150). The year 1962 marked a huge
turning point in Saudi Arabias special education system as the Ministry of Education established
the Department of Special Learning, which specialized in disabled students education. The
department categorized disabilities as deafness, blindness, or mental retardation in order to
determine the number of disabled students across the country based on the disability categories
(Al-Mousa, 1999; Al-Ahmadi, 2009). In the efforts to establish special education services around
the kingdom, the Department of Special Learning established three institutions in three cities
Mecca, Aneeza, and Alhofouftargeting only blind students in 1972 (Alquraini, 2010).
In the last decade, the number of special students has increased noticeably. According to
a statistical report issued by the General Administration of Special Education (2008), a total of
30,000 special students have been registered. To accommodate that enormous growth in the
number of special needs students, the General Administration of Special Education increased the
number of special education centers, education programs in public schools, and institutions of
hearing and intellectual disability to 2,119 spread throughout the kingdoma tremendous
improvement compared to the number of institutions available in 1972.
As result of the rapid development in special education services, the General
Administration of Special Education generated increased interest in the adoption of new

technologies into the pedagogical system of special education (Rana, Fakrudeen, Miraz, Yousef
& Torqi, 2011).

Diffusion of Innovation Theory

The history of diffusion of innovation began in 1943 when both Ryan and Gross studied
the adoption of hybrid seed technology in two Iowa farm societies (Richardson, 2011). In the
1950s, Everett Rogers picked up on the work done by Ryan and Gross and proposed the
diffusion of innovation theory. He has developed and revised this theory over the course of his
lifetime (Bush & Cameron, 2011). The main purpose of the diffusion of innovation theory is to
investigate individuals perception on a new innovation, whether it is a new idea or an object that
has been introduced into a society. Rogerss diffusion of innovation theory became more popular
across disciplines; therefore, his diffusion of innovation theory and model are considered a
comprehensive conceptual framework for researchers who study the adoption of innovation,
because it examines adoption factors and facilitates the adoption of an innovation process
(Richardson, 2011; Kebritchi, 2010). Rogers (2003) defined the diffusion of innovation is as the
process in which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the
members of a social system (p.5). According to diffusion of innovation theory, participants are
the major players in the adoption process; with diffusion of innovation theory, researchers
measure the willingness of participants and examine the adoption factors to adopt a new
innovation. Rogers refers to participants as adopters, which indicates their decision making to
adopt or refuse an innovation (Hoerup, 2001). This theory by Rogers (2003) highlighted four
elements and five types of adopters.

Four main elements in the diffusion of innovation

The diffusion of innovation process consists of four major elements: the innovation,
communication channel, time, and social system (Bush & Cameron, 2011). Rogers (2003)
referred to innovation as an idea, practice or object that is perceived as new by an individual or
another unit of adoption (p.12). An innovation does not have to be a newly invented idea, but it
may still be new for individuals (Sahin, 2006; Oldenburg & Glanz, 2008). The second element is
the communication channel, which is defined as the process by which participants create and
share information with one another in order to reach a mutual understanding (Rogers, 2003, p.
5). This refers to how messages are being spread through channels within a social system. The
third element is time; Rogers (2003) argued that most works of behavioral research omit the time
factor, which is an essential element in the innovation-decision process. The fourth element is
social system. Rogers (2003) defined social system as a set of interrelated units that are
engaged in joint problem solving to accomplish a common goal (p. 23).
Diffusion of innovation adopters category
According to Rogers, adopters can be categorized as follows: innovators, early adopters,
early majority adopters, late majority adopters, and laggards (Crompton & Keane, 2012;
Richardson, 2011; Jwaifell & Gasaymeh, 2012). Rogers illustrated the adopters category
separated by standard deviations from the average time of adoption, which represent a bell curve
(Hoerup, 2001).
Rogers (2003) refers to those in the innovators category as venturesome. Innovators are
considered to be risk takers who had prior knowledge or experience with technology. To fall into
the innovators category, several perquisites need to be met: intrinsic financial resources, the
ability to understand complicated technical knowledge, and the ability to overcome difficulties at

the time of adoption. The second category encompasses the early adopters, including the early
majority. Early adopters do not have the same resources as the innovators; however, they are
respected by the social system and are willing to utilize the technology and motivate others to do
so, but they prefer to see others using the technology before they adopt it. The third category is
the late majority adaptors. According to Rogers, late majority adopters can be defined as those
who adopt new ideas just after the average member of a social system (Rogers, 2003). The late
adaptors majority will adopt the new technology, but it will be under certain pressure. They
might be skeptical about the technology until it is being fully adopted by others in the social
system. The last category is the laggards. Rogers described laggards as traditional, who adopt
new technology if they forced to do so (Rogers, 1983; Hoerup, 2003; Crompton & Keane, 2012).
Diffusion of Innovation Attributes
Rogers proposed five perceived attributes of diffusion of innovation: relative advantage,
compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. These attributes play major roles in
reducing individuals hesitation about the innovation by acting as facilitators during the
innovation adoption process, describe the relationship between innovation characteristics and the
implementation of the innovation, and most importantly determine the rate of adoption of
individuals in a social system (Sahin, 2006 & Al-Gahtani, 2003). Rogers (2003) defined rate of
adoption as the relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by members of a social
system (p.221), which means that the rate of adoption measures the number of individuals who
adopt an innovation in a particular time frame. Hence, the perceived attributes are important
elements of the clarification of the rate of adoption of new ideas (Rogers, 2003; Hoerup, 2003)
The first attribute is relative advantage. Rogers (2003) described the relative advantage as
the degree to which an innovation is perceived better than the idea is supersedes (p.15). The

degree of relative advantage usually emphasizes the measure of economic factors. However,
there are other important factors; for instance, social prestige, convenience, and satisfaction
(Rogers, 2003). Two works of research mentioned that relative advantage considers the best
predicators of an innovation rate of adoption, because once individuals are forced to accept a
new demand, they will adopt it (Hoerup, 2003; Casmar, 2001). Several works of research state
that, in the educational environment, teachers are more willing to adopt new technology into the
classroom if they believe it has value in their instruction (Kebritchi, 2010 & Jwaifell &
Gasaymeh, 2012).
The second attribute is compatibility, whose definition is the degree to which an
innovation is perceived as being consistent with existing value, past experiences and needs of
potential adaptors (Rogers, 2003, p. 15). This means that innovation affects individuals
opinions, beliefs, values, and views, but an innovation has to be compatible with an individuals
need because it will reduce uncertainly, and the rate of adoption will increase (Hoerup, 2003;
Sahin, 2006). If an innovation is incompatible with an individuals opinion, belief, or values, it
will not be adopted as quickly as an innovation that is compatible. One instance of incompatible
innovation is the use of certain birth control methods, where in some religions prohibit the use of
these kinds of contraceptive methods (Rogers, 2003, p.15).
The third attribute of innovation is complexity. Rogers (2003) described complexity as
the degree to which an innovation is perceived as relatively difficult to understand and use
(p.16). An innovation can be categorized based on complexity, simplicity, and continuum. If
innovations are user friendly, understandable, and clear, individuals will adopt it easily and
rapidly, whereas complicated innovations are adopted more slowly, because adopters need to
develop new skills to become familiar with innovation (Hoerup, 2003 & Al-Gahtani, 2003).

Several works of research mentioned that complexity might correlate negatively with the rate of
adoption.
The fourth attribute is trialability. According to Rogers (2003), trialability can be defined
as the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis (p.16). The
trialability attribute correlates positively with the rate of adoption, because (1) when an
individual tries a small portion of innovation at a time, the chance of adoption will increase, and
(2) the attribute of trialability exemplifies less uncertainty for those who are willing to adopt an
innovation (Hoerup, 2003; Sahin, 2006; Rogers, 2003). An example of perceived trialability
occurred when Ryan and Gross (1943) conducted a diffusion study on Iowa farmers to examine
farmers adoption of hybrid seed corn in their communities. This seminal work by Ryan and
Gross revealed that Iowa farmers would adopt hybrid seed corn if they have the chance to try it
partially before they fully plant it into their farm land. In the Ryan and Gross study, the
perceived trialability attribute was the critical factor in terms of rate of adoption and the
acceptance process of the new innovation. The trial took fourteen years before Iowa farm
communities planted 100 percent corn hybrid seed.
The last attribute is observability, defined as the degree to which the results of an
innovation are visible to others (Rogers, 2003, p.16), or in other words, how observable the
positive results of innovation are to others. The observability attribute plays a major role in the
adoption process, because the visibility of positive results of the innovation increases the chance
of adoption (Almobarraz, 2007; Hoerup, 2003). Like the perceived attributes of relative
advantage, compatibility, and trialability, observability is also positively correlated with the rate
of adoption (Sahin, 2006 & Al-Gahtani, 2003).

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In summary, adopting a new innovation process has been studies for the last three
decades but Rogers diffusion of innovation theory is the most popular theoretical framework for
technology adoption studies. (Sahin, 2006; Hoerup, 2003). This study will use Rogers attributes
of innovation to investigate special education teachers perceptions toward iPad adoption as a
new innovation.

Procedures
Description of the research design
Based on the research questions, a descriptive study will be conducted to measure special
education teachers perceptions toward iPad adoption as new innovation. Landman (1988)
deified a descriptive study as a type of research that is primarily concerned with describing the
nature or conditions and degree in detail of the present situation (p. 5). Descriptive study is
widely used in social sciences because it provides detailed explanations on a specific
phenomenon (Fraenkel, Wallen & Hyun, 2012). Three types of descriptive study methods can be
used: observational method, case study method, and survey method (Jackson, 2009). According
to Fraenkel et al. (2012), the most common method in educational research is the survey method,
because it helps summarize the characteristics of individuals or groups. In this study, the survey
method will be used to understand the perceptions of special education teachers in Saudi Arabia
toward iPad adoption as a new innovation.

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Description of the sample

The participants in this study will be special education teachers in Saudi Arabia.
According to a statistical report issued by the General Administration of Special Education
(2008), the majority of special education teachers are located in three major states: Mecca,
Riyadh, and Eastern. The researcher will use a simple random sampling method to select a large
number of participants from the three states to ensure the sample represents the whole
population.

Description of the instruments

The instrument used in this study is based on the original work of Moore and Benbasat
(1991), Their instrument was based on Rogers (2003) five attributes of innovation: relative
advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. The authors developed 38
items that address Rogers (2003) five attributes of innovation. The researcher will select 20
items from Moore and Benbasat (1991) and slightly modified these items to fit this proposed
study scoop.

Explanation of the Procedures Followed

The data will be collected from special education teachers in Mecca state. The researcher
will use convenient sampling approach to collect data from the participants. The researcher will
obtain an approval for conducting the study from the General Administration of Special
Education, which located Mecca city. In addition, the researcher will obtain IRB approval. The
data collection phase may take approximately between one to two weeks for each state.
Instrument validity and reliability

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The researcher will conduct a pilot testing for the modified survey instrument in order to
check it is validity and reliability. To measure reliability of the instrument, Cornbach alpha will
be computed. In addition, item analysis will be preformed to assess constructs Cornbach alpha.

Description of Threats Internal Validity

Possible threats to internal validity are instrumentation and mortality. The primary
language in Saudi Arabia is Arabic so the researcher will translate the modified instrument to the
native language of the participants. However, the accuracy of the translation may pose serious
threats to the study regarding participants responses to the questionnaire items. To avoid poor
translation, the researcher will establish a board of reviewers who are fluent in both English and
Arabic and have experiences in technology adoption field and instruments translation. The
purpose of the board is to ensure that questionnaire items are translated properly then they will
compare the items with the original instruments to ensure that the translated instrument covers all
variables. The researcher will conduct a pilot study to test content validity and reliability of the
instrument.
The second threat to internal validity is mortality, which means the possibility of losing
subjects during data collection phase. The mortality poses serious threats especially in
descriptive studies because the number of subjects has to be greater than 100 in orders to produce
valid results. To control the issues of losing participants during data collection, the researcher
will replace lost subjects with others who have the same characteristic.

Description of External Validity

The final results of the study can be generalized for all special education teachers for all
special education teachers because the data will be collected from three major states where the

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majority of special education teachers located. The results of the study can be applicable to other
studies that focusing on assistive technology adoption in special education system in Saudi
Arabia.

Description of Statistical Method Used

The statistical method to be used in this study is the multiple regression technique.
Multiple regressions are the most common statistical technique used in social sciences (Berry &
Feldman, 1985). This technique allows for using more independent variables to predict one
dependent variable. The study will rely on eight independent variablesrelative advantage,
image, ease of use, complexity, trialability, visibility, result demonstrability, and voluntariness
to predict one dependent variable: special education teachers adoption of iPads.
The multiple regression technique relies on set of assumptions to test the variables used
in the study. In the current study, three assumptions will be examined: linearity, normality, and
multicollinearity.

Ethics and Human Relations

Possible Threats to Research Participants
The study will not pose threats to the participants. The researcher will include in the
survey the approval litter for the from the General Administration of Special Education and
consent form. In the consent form the researcher will explain the goal of the study and the
instructions to complete the survey. The participants will not ask to provide their names.

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Time Line
Time frame

Research steps

Jun 15th, 14 to July 5th, 14

The researcher will contact the General Administration of

Special Education to obtain an approval.

July 25th, 2014 to August

5, 14

Distribute survey and collect data from Riyadh state.

August 10th, 14 to August

27, 14

Distribute survey and collect data from Eastern state.

September 3rd, 14 to
September 28th, 14
September 17th, 14 to
November 28th, 14

Distribute survey and collect data Mecca state.

Data analysis

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