The rhetoric of reform and teachers' use of ICT.

During the last two decades, the Cyprus Education System has been undergoing systematic reform efforts. Within the spirit of change, efforts have been made to equip all public schools with computers and provide them with access to the internet. Compared with other European Union countries, Cyprus infrastructure is one of the most developed. However, as our research shows, the adoption of technology does not match the rhetoric of reform that dominates education discourse. In order to examine the challenges and opportunities primary school teachers face in efforts to integrate technology in the classroom, four in-depth case studies of schools were developed and a large scale survey was conducted across public schools. This paper discusses the method, the design and the results from our research, drawing on both survey findings and rich qualitative data. Theoretical discussions provide further empirical grounding of technology adoption models and illustrate barriers to effective adoption of ICT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]