Study Results: Tech Support & Equipment Location

This post is part of a series inviting discussion, comments and reflection on the results of my dissertation.

Remember as you review the results of my study that every variable was examined to see its relationship with how often the school was using curriculum videoconferencing and whether that variable could be used to predict the use of videoconferencing.

In this post, we’ll look at the relationship between the school’s use of curriculum videoconferencing and some more support variables.

Who Supports You?

  • The choices were: a technical support person in my school, at my district, at my ESA or the vendor.
  • Each of these answers was not significantly correlated to the schools’ use of videoconferencing. However, when using all the administrative reports in a multiple regression analysis to determine which variables predict use of videoconferencing, tech support from my ESA contributed positively to the regression model (b=67.06, p=.011).

Speed of Support

  • The speed of support that the coordinator received was not significantly related to the schools’ use of videoconferencing.

Location of Equipment

  • Only two of the equipment locations were significantly correlated to the school’s use of videoconferencing.
  • Schools with a mobile cart are using videoconferencing significantly more than the average of all the others (r=.156, p=.009).
  • Where the coordinators support multiple systems in multiple locations, their schools are using videoconferencing significantly less than the average of all the others (r=-.159, p=.008).
  • The schools that have mobile equipment are the only ones that are significantly satisfied with the location of the equipment (r=-.151, p=.012).

Reasons for the Location of Equipment

  • None of the reasons for the location of the equipment were significantly correlated to the school’s use of videoconferencing.
  • However, two of the reasons were significantly correlated to the coordinator’s satisfaction with the location of the equipment.
  • Schools who placed the equipment based on ease of use for teachers were more satisfied with the location of the equipment (r=.278, p=.000).
  • Schools who placed the equipment based on the only available room were less satisfied with the location of the equipment (r=-192, p=.001).

Recommendations / Discussion

  • Do you receive tech support from your ESA? It seems like this is an important piece, and could be because it is hard for overworked district tech coordinators (at least in smaller distrcits) to have the detailed knowledge necessary to make IP videoconferencing work on school networks. What do you think?
  • Do you think there is an ideal location of equipment in a school using VC for curriculum enrichment?
  • Are you satisfied with the current location of your equipment? Do you wish it was somewhere else?
  • Do you agree with these results in your situation? why or why not?

Please comment!

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