Poster Session 4: Family Life Education

Presenters: Sun-Kyung Lee, Seonghee Hong, Susan Walker

Summary
Technology's rise brings new challenges and opportunities to parent and family education, yet there remains a limited understanding of professionals' practice. The purpose of the study was to examine technology use by family education professionals (N=631) and explore workplace conditions as influences on their technology acceptance. Based on responses to an online survey, email and document preparation (e.g., Word) were employed most frequently; social media, or online learning platforms were infrequently used. Structural Equation Modeling tested how workplace conditions influence technology acceptance. Workplace infrastructure indirectly influenced acceptance attitude through perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness; workplace encouragement, directly and indirectly, increased acceptance through perceived ease of use. Workplace climate offers a range of ways to promote and support technology adoption in family education.

Objectives
-- Explore family educators' technology practices and tech-related attitudes, skills and workplace conditions.
-- Validate the use of the adapted Technology Acceptance Model with a national sample of parent and family educators in the US.
-- Examine whether family educators' perceived technology usefulness and perceived ease of tech use mediate the relationship between workplace conditions and technology acceptance.

Subject Codes: technology, parenting education, sustainabilities
Population Codes: Family Life Education, non-clinical practitioners, educators
Method and Approach Codes: structural equation modeling (SEM), mediation/indirect effects models, latent variable modeling