Teaching with technology requires high expectancies and high values

Much research has been conducted on the relations between teacher beliefs, in terms of expectancies and values, and teaching with technology. However, findings have been inconsistent. Some studies reported that expectancies mattered more for teaching with technology, while others found that values played a more crucial role, and still others found neither belief factor to significantly predict teachers’ use of technology in classrooms. This discrepancy makes identifying intervention targets difficult for scholars and stakeholders. The present study aimed to clarify the discrepant results by considering the complexity of teacher beliefs and examining the dynamic relations between expectancies, values, and teaching with technology. Leveraging two nationally representative samples, the present study found consistently in the main and replication samples that the relations between values and various dimensions of teaching with technology depended on expectancies. Specifically, the relations between values and teaching with technology became nonsignificant when expectancies were low. In contrast, teaching with technology was substantially increased when expectancies and values were both high. These findings suggest that the discrepant results in the literature may stem from a failure to consider the interaction between teacher beliefs about teaching with technology and highlight the need for experimental research targeting expectancies and values about teaching with technology.