Prior studies of technology adoption among faculty have focused on instructional technologies, rather than the adoption of technologies that students will use in their future careers. Dr. Jarvie-Eggart's RIEF work aimed to advance knowledge of technology adoption by focusing on specific factors that impede or assist the adoption of industry-specific technologies by engineering faculty. To accomplish this, she interviewed 21 engineering faculty at a Midwestern United States STEM-focused institution about their adoption of engineering technologies. Deductive and inductive coding were used to identify themes within the qualitative data. The project developed the Theory of Faculty Adoption of Engineering Technologies (TFAET) as an overlay to former technology adoption models (Jarvie-Eggart, et al., 2024). This model, shown in the figure below, theorizes that, in the presence of access to an engineering technology, the progression from Behavioral Intention to Use to actual Use Behavior is influenced by various Facilitating Conditions (Other People, Digital Resources, Non-Digital Resources, Time, and Formal Training) and by Personal Traits (Persistence, Humility, Self Efficacy, Growth Mindset, Ambiguity Acceptance, and Curiosity) as shown in the figure below. Importantly, none of the existing models of technology adoption include characteristics of user personality, only their perceptions of the technology’s usefulness and ease of use, which expands the field’s understanding of faculty technology adoption. It is important to note that this qualitative study was focused on identifying potential themes missing in the current models. Future quantitative work should develop and validate items and scales to measure each of these new constructs, as well as explore and confirm the relationships between the proposed and existing constructs and variables.

Through faculty interviews, surveys, and focus groups, several potential interventions were identified that might support faculty adoption of engineering technologies. These interventions included financial support and performance incentives, establishment of university-sanctioned software or programming languages, workload reductions for the purpose of learning a new technology, short courses provided to faculty on campus, and efforts to connect faculty with established technology users on their campuses. Development of these interventions will be the focus of future research.

The findings of this project have the potential to impact engineering education, as well as the field of technology adoption, through the development of the Theory of Faculty Adoption of Engineering Technologies, and through suggesting specific interventions that promote adoption of new engineering technologies by faculty. Understanding faculty technology adoption has the potential to improve engineering education by encouraging faculty to continually adopt and implement new technologies for their research and/or teaching. Such adoption will  ensure that the future engineers are proficient with up-to-date technologies and have the dispositions and skills to continue to learn new technologies throughout their careers. 

The new constructs related to technology adoption that emerged from the work are likely to apply to faculty across all disciplines and thus will be relevant to university faculty beyond those in engineering fields. These new constructs may also apply to faculty learning any new material about which they have anxiety or nervousness.