Using ANT to Guide Technological Adoption: The Case of School Management Software

In this article, the authors present the adoption and use of school management software in Victoria, Australia as an example of the use of actor-network theory to explain technological adoption. It examines three examples of school management software and identifies the actors and interactions relating to each of these. The use of three cases in the same environment provides an interesting insight possible by the comparison across the cases. The main goal of the article is to identify and analyse the factors that influence decisions to adopt this software and, once adopted, to determine how it might be used. Like other socio-technical research, in this case one has to consider the interactions between various human and non-human actors, and these are examined in the article. The article also looks at how an ANT analysis might be useful in guiding and facilitating such adoption in the future. DOI: 10.4018/jantti.2012100103 48 International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation, 4(4), 47-61, October-December 2012 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. SCHOOL MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE For some time administrative computer systems in schools have been designed to meet the need to handle the large amount of data relating to individual students and student groups. This data is collected from many formal and informal sources including: student enrolments, observational surveys, early year interviews, running records, other formal testing and anecdotal notes (Tatnall & Tatnall, 2007). Other educational data relating to school and student performance is also important. Australia is a federation of six states and two territories. The Commonwealth (Federal) Government is based in Canberra, but school education is the province of the State Governments. The Federal Government from time to time provides money for nationally significant education projects. As well as government schools in each state there is a significant private sector with private schools making up around 30% of the total. In this article we will examine several computer systems for administrative use in schools in Victoria to investigate how they contribute to school community involvement (Davey & Tatnall, 2012, forthcoming). This analysis is facilitated by the fact that each of these systems is working in the same environment.