What Drives Educational Technology Adoption in Classrooms Serving Young Children? Evidence from Two Experiments

As new education technology applications emerge, teachers and school leaders must decide which ones to endorse. What influences these decisions? This study examines how information about two aspects of ed tech apps—efficacy and popularity—affects educators’ choices to adopt them. We present causal estimates from two experiments: a within-subject survey of 1,104 teachers (pre-K through grade 4) and a between-subjects experiment with 154 school leaders. In the first experiment, providing teachers with a cue about strong research evidence increased their likelihood of recommending a math learning app by 0.24 SD (compared to a no-cue control), while a peer-popularity cue raised it by 0.21 SD; using both cues together led to a 0.30 SD increase. In the second experiment, showing school leaders an informational video about a math app’s popularity and research evidence did not significantly increase their likelihood of recommending the app or their willingness to pay for it.