TPC Journal V8, Issue 4- FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 4 373 implementation year and Webex trainings were offered quarterly to those who needed a refresher on Naviance features and functionalities. In addition, professional development was offered to counselor groups upon request. The first researcher works at the district office and provides monthly professional development to school counselors; however, the first researcher does not supervise the school counselors. Further, there are multiple layers of supervision that remove the first researcher from the day-to-day interactions of school counselors; the first researcher does not sign the performance evaluations of counselors, thereby preventing the first researcher from being able to use knowledge obtained from this study to negatively affect the participants. The second researcher works at a university in Texas as an adjunct faculty member. The first researcher identifies as African American and the second as Afro-Latino, with a mean age of 45. The first researcher is female and the second is male. Neither researcher has received financial assistance to conduct this study from Hobsons or its affiliates. Instruments Survey questionnaire . The TAM electronic questionnaire, first developed by Davis (1993) and validated in different contexts by several researchers (Nair & Das, 2011), consisted of 17 questions, of which 13 were on a 5-point Likert-type scale questionnaire, with the scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree). Also included in the survey questionnaire was demographic information (questions 1–3). To explore the research question, survey questions 4–15 asked about the extent to which Naviance was easy to use (4 questions); whether Naviance enhanced middle and high school counselors’ counseling practices, job productivity, and efficiency (4 questions); if Naviance was useful (2 questions); and attitudes toward using Naviance (2 questions). Question 16 was open-ended and regarded counselors’ overall attitude toward using Naviance , and the last question asked participants to indicate the frequency that they use Naviance (1 = daily, 2 = weekly, 3 = monthly, 4 = at least every other month, or 5 = not at all). Validation of the survey questions was established through a school counseling professional, who is a researcher, university faculty, and a retired school counselor of 30 years. Both researchers had combined experience of more than 30 years in counseling. Interviews. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were another source of data for this study to help answer both research questions. The researchers used TAM and the survey questionnaire to construct 10 interview questions. The 10 interview questions centered on usefulness, ease of use, attitudes, and whether Naviance helped to enhance school counseling practices, job productivity, and efficiency. To ascertain ease of use, the first two interview questions focused on which of the functionalities in Naviance were the easiest to navigate and which data visualization features were easy to decipher. Questions 3 and 4 investigated how Naviance enhanced the role of school counselors and the benefits of using Naviance to engage multiple stakeholders. Interview questions 5–8 examined the ways that Naviance increases job effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. The remaining questions explored whether Naviance was worthwhile and integration challenges. Validation of the interview questions were by an expert panel of doctoral-level professionals in the fields of education and school counseling. Two members of the panel have been school principals and district personnel for more than 20 years combined. The third expert panelist is a university faculty member and retired school counselor. The first researcher sent the interview questions to the expert panel via email and requested feedback. One of the experts suggested that the researchers add a definition for perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness for the participants as part of interview questions two and three, which the first researcher subsequently incorporated. The second expert suggested that the researchers incorporate the language middle and high school counselor as part of the