Nurse academics' attitudes towards technology: A mixed methods study

Technology is being increasing used in education of nursing students. Nurse academics act both as gatekeepers to technology within their classes and as an example of technology attitudes. Therefore, understanding the attitude of academics to technology from the academic's perspective is necessary to understand barriers and enablers of technology engagement.

To explore nurse academics' attitudes to technology and the influence attitude has on their use of technologies in teaching.

Sequential exploratory mixed method design.

Academics who taught into the undergraduate Bachelor of Nursing courses in higher education institutes (n = 186) based in Australia.

Phase one data were collected with a survey based on the Technology Readiness Index 2 (TRI 2). Phase two Qualitative interviews were conducted with 18 nurse academics sampled from the phase one survey. Statistical analysis was performed on the survey to determine factors that influence attitudes to technology. Thematic analysis was performed for qualitative data.

The mean score of the TRI 2 was 3.28 (SD = 0.55). Segmental analysis of the TRI score resulted there being three groups representing 90 % of participants: Explorers, Sceptics, and Hesitators. Thematic analysis resulted in four themes. The focus of this paper is the theme Attitudes towards Technology with the subthemes Openness to Technology; Aversion to Technology; Pedagogy and Technology; and Nursing and Technology. Phase one and phase two were integrated to discuss three attitude groups that emerged.

From integration of the results, three groups emerged with complementary and contrasting reasons for their attitudes to technology. Additional factors were also identified such as workload and support. Common across the groups was a student-centred focus of teaching and an acknowledgement that nursing education must prepare students for technology rich work environments.