Understanding Rural and Urban Teachers' ICT Usage in China: An Ecological Perspective

Rural schools are considered the "final mile" in China's Educational Technology Plan (2011-2020). The current study uses semi-structured group interviews with 174 teachers from 26 schools spread widely across Fujian province in order to explore the gaps between rural and urban teachers' use of technology and the obstacles they encounter in this area. The results of the comparison indicate two important differences between two groups. One is that rural teachers comparatively rarely used the interactive functions available to them for their own presentations and instead let their students use the available technologies. The other difference we found demonstrates that the two key factors to hinder rural teachers' technology integration are the higher malfunction rate of teaching devices (combined with delayed repairs) and the perception that there were few advantages to the technology when it came to improve their students' generally low-test scores. To use an ecological metaphor, our findings suggest that the equipment malfunctions, usually worsened by delayed maintenance, have disrupted the environment and make it difficult for an invading species - technology - to survive. Moreover, fewer and lower perceived advantages for their students have strongly hindered rural teachers' willingness to try new technologies, thus decreasing the opportunities for mutual adaptation between technology and teacher. Policymakers should use this knowledge to develop future decisions.