Between Awareness and Acceptance: a more mature School Teachers? Perspective on Integrated Learning one year after the pandemic outbreak

Abstract

One year after the outbreak of the pandemic that provoked a forced and massive adoption of technology enhanced learning practices, followed by a continuous evolution of their delivery modalities (on-line learning, blended learning, parallel blended learning, hybrid learning) and, finally, by a strong commitment to come back to a “new normal”, we have investigated, by mean of a survey, the evolution of: a) perceptions and perspectives of Italian school’s teachers about integrated learning; b) the undergoing innovation process characterized by unprecedented features and vastness. The exploration has been conducted by integrating perspectives and factors introduced in the past by several models - TAM, UTAUT, DOI, TOE, KAM - to describe technology innovation and adoption processes. We observed a higher perceived teachers' technological and pedagogical preparation, together with a higher readiness of the schools to react to unexpected events or sudden prescriptions. A readiness that should be ascribed mainly to the quality of the management and to an increase in the level of collaboration and cohesion among the actors of the learning process, rather than to an enhancement of the technological infrastructures. Collaboration, indeed, emerges as the main peculiarity of this last year, an engine capable to foster the spread of competences and a beacon capable to guide the choice of teaching practices. The influence of contextual factors appears not relevant and that of the “perceived values” somewhat marginal. As far as the innovation process: the awareness phase developed satisfactory and, in parallel, the acceptance phase also started. The possible transition to the adoption phase appears uncertain and not easy to characterize. At the time of the survey, however, the teachers perceived, the integrated learning as a modality that could be used in the future to realize 36% of the school activities.