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IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2010DO THE PERCEIVED ATTRIBUTES OF SOCIALNETWORKS DIFFER IN TERMS OF BEING INNOVATOROR SKEPTICAL OF PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS?Assoc. Prof. Yasemin Koçak Usluel*, Pınar Nuhoğlu** and Bahadır Yildiz**Hacettepe Üniversitesi**Ankara ÜniversitesiAnkaraABSTRACTConsidering the social networks as an innovation, the purpose of this study is to determine if the perceived attributes ofinnovation vary in terms of the innovativeness or being skeptical. In this way, it is aimed to investigate the diffusion ofinnovation process from both of the innovation-based and an individual-based perspective. Perceived attributes ofinnovation is handled as five factors, namely; usefulness, ease of use, social influence, facilitating conditions and relativeadvantage. Innovators are defined as individuals who adopt innovations earlier, courageous to try innovations and learnto use innovations by themselves. On the other side, skepticals are defined as individuals who use innovations to keeppace with society, fall behind in to use innovation for different reasons and use innovations only when majority using it.The data is collected by two scales, developed by the researchers. One of the scales aimed to measureinnovativeness/being skeptical (Cronbach α = .697) and consisted of 7 questions in 10-Likert type while the other scaleaimed to measure perceived attributes of innovation (Cronbach α = .929) and consisted of 27 questions in 10-likert type.Experts’opinion was taken for content validity and exploratory factor analysis was executed to show construct validity.The study group is consisted of 192 prospective teachers. An independent sample t-test has been executed to determinewhether the perceived attributes of innovation vary significantly in terms of innovativeness or being skeptical. The resultshave revealed out that among the perceived attributes of innovation, perceived usefulness and ease of use varysignificantly due to the innovative or being skeptical characteristics of prospective teachers. It has been also revealed outthat while the variation in usefulness was in favor of the skeptical teachers, that in ease of use turned out to be in favor ofthe innovatives. Thus within the limitations of the study, it can be concluded, perceived ease of use and perceivedusefulness are the perceived attributes that determine nature of innovative and the skeptical prospective teachersrespectively.KEYWORDSdiffusion of innovation, perceived attributes, adopter categories1. INTRODUCTIONThe diversity of the innovations presented by improving technology and the sustainability of innovation bringalong studies on the diffusion and adoption of these innovations in the field of education. There is a notableamount of literature presenting the perceived attributes of innovation and determining which of theseinnovations explain most the diffusion and adoption of innovation (Lee, Kozar and Larsen, 2003; Venkateshand others, 2003; Mazman and Usluel, 2010).The process of diffusion for innovation is a multi-dimensional and dynamic one. This process may varyas to innovation, the social system or the attributes of the individual. Rogers (2003) stated that the perceivedattributes of innovation differ in terms of the characteristics of the individual. Thus this study attempts todetermine if there would be any differences in the perceived attributes of innovation in terms of beinginnovator or skeptical.It has been explained that the origins of the variables of perceived attributes of innovation as relativeadvantage (Rogers, 1983; Moore and Benbasat, 1991; Prekumar and Potter, 1995), compatibility (Rogers,1983; Chin and Gopal, 1995; Xia and Lee, 2000), complexity (Premkumar and Potter, 1995; Igbaria andothers, 1996), observability (Moore and Benbasat, 1991), triability (Moore and Benbasat, 1991; Karahanna303