Remote Robotic Experimentation - An Evaluation of Intention to Use by High School Teachers in Cyprus

The Digital Agenda for Europe (2015) states that there will be 825,000 unfilled vacancies for Information and Communications Technology by 2020. This lack of IT professionals stems from the small number of students graduating in computer science. To retain more students in the field, teachers can use various educational technologies to explain difficult concepts. One of these educational technologies is remote robotic experimentation. The correlational study described in this paper utilizes the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology acceptance model to examine if performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions can predict the intention of high school computer science teachers in Cyprus to use remote robotic experiments in their classes. Surveys, based on the UTAUT survey instrument, were collected from 90 high school computer science teachers in Cyprus, and a multiple regression analysis was applied to measure the correlations between the constructs and finally the model fit of the analysis. The results of the study show that if certain conditions are provided to the teachers then there is a higher probability that they will use remote robotic experimentation in their classes.