Readiness of Vietnamese High Schools for Digital Transformation and Its Influencing Factors: A Quantitative Study

Abstract

Digital transformation has become a widespread phenomenon worldwide and profoundly affects the existence and development of different socio-economic organisations toward a comprehensive digital society in the near future. High schools must also implement digital transformation as a comprehensive change of schools to a state where all activities are applied to digital technologies to improve performance efficiency and educational quality. That change is not only a change in technology in its operations but, more importantly, a change in the staff behaviour. However, for these changes to be achieved as expected, a factor considered "antecedent" is the readiness of school members to overcome resistance originally arising from an organisational change requirement. Therefore, this study investigates the status of readiness of Vietnamese high schools for digital transformation from the point of view of high school teachers, who play the role of one of the key factors based on Weiner's theory of organisational readiness for change (2009). Participants are teachers currently teaching at high schools in Vietnam. The study sample was selected using the convenience sampling technique. The data collection period was from July 19 to August 18, 2022. The final dataset consisted of 87 records used for analysis. Characteristics such as gender, working area, training level, and working seniority of high school teachers and the two elements of Change valence and Information assessment are considered to have a correlation with the readiness of high schools. The descriptive statistical analysis results show that the readiness for digital transformation in Vietnamese general education institutions is at a positive level (mean = 3.74). The study results show that only the Change valence factor was determined to have a statistically significant correlation with the readiness of high schools for digital transformation. These results will be useful evidence for teachers, researchers in education and organisational development, and school administrators to implement digital transformation in education.