Factors Influencing Teacher’s Technostress Experienced in Using Emerging Technology: A Qualitative Study

In this era of rapid technology growth, many countries have begun to adopt emerging technologies into their educational systems to improve learning outcomes. The aim of this study is to explore the factors influencing teachers’ experiences of technostress while using new technology in academic classrooms and how it might be mitigated. Prior research has not focused on how technostress develops among individuals over time or how it can be mitigated in an individual context; the intention of this study is to contribute to the technostress literature in these particular areas. To address the research gap, we conducted a qualitative study that collected data through the use of an open-ended question questionnaire. Seventy teachers of different backgrounds and locations responded to the survey. We used thematic analysis to analyze their responses and reveal how lack of school support and their professional identities influence their levels of technostress. Technology characteristics, including the complexity and the benefits of a given technology, and privacy concerns play a crucial role in teachers’ experiences of technostress. Moreover, we found that colleague support in using new technology and open educational resources each contributed to mitigating teachers’ technostress levels. Our study extends technostress research to examine a new learning environment and context. This focus allowed us to highlight the need to develop open educational resources and better social support structures for teachers and to rethink the professional identities of developing teachers to mitigate their levels of technostress. Suggestions for further research that resulted from this work include using a mixed methods research approach in future studies and including more teachers in future work to determine the relationships among the factors identified by this study.