A Comparison of change management guidelines to address technology adoption barriers: A case study of higher educational institutions

Abstract

Emerging technologies are bolstering the development in the world in all the domains of the world. Education sector is an example of such innovation, by basing on which new means of pedagogy and andragogy are being explored with suitable models. The present study aims to know the difference in such models and the change management guidelines in addressing the barriers of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) in Higher Educational Institutions (HEI). The students of the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering (DEECE) of 1st year are selected from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) are selected for the study using purposive random sampling. They are divided into two groups and are made to participate in a survey after providing some level of orientation about the change management models and the role of the model such as UTAUT and ADKAR. The opinion of the students is collected regarding the ability of the models to hedge against the barriers in the process of technology enhanced learning. The collected data is analyzed to check the means and standard deviation of scores and hence the difference between the opinion of the groups. To achieve this, t-test for difference of means with unequal variance is used. The results led to the acceptance of the null hypotheses that are framed basing on the research questions. Among the two groups of students surveyed, it is proved that the group that got exposed to TEL approach is able to understand the barriers in a better manner than their counterparts. In addition to the results, the draw backs of the study like limited sample size, clarity about the causality and ineffective participation of students are identified. Hence it is advocated to the future research works to overcome the limitations and to understand the role of the change management guidelines to address the barriers in the technology adopting as per the setting.