In the last decade, students’ digital competence has been extensively discussed, and frameworks concerning what this competence should consist of have been outlined (e.g., Ferrari, 2013). Furthermore, digital competence has become part of national curricula in many countries (Balanskat, 2009). But in order to provide opportunities to acquire digital competence, teachers and schools are expected to integrate ICT into their classroom practice (Tondeur, van Keer, van Braak, & Valcke, 2008). In consequence, researchers studied the factors determining teachers’ ICT integration (Donnelly, McGarr, & O’Reilly, 2011). Among these, teachers’ perceived usefulness of ICT (PU) has received special attention in the context of technology integration and is regarded as the strongest predictor of teachers’ intentions to use ICT (Teo, 2009), thus leading to the actual use of ICT (Chien, Wu, & Hsu, 2014). PU is part of teachers’ belief system and refers to their individual beliefs that using ICT will help them improve their job performance (Davis, 1989).

In current research, PU has been operationalized at a general level, referring to whether teachers generally regard ICT as useful to increase their job performance (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). But this unidimensional view can be considered superficial, as it does not take into account the specific goals and tasks of teachers’ classroom practices (Niederhauser & Perkmen, 2010). Being aware of the multifaceted nature of teachers’ job performance, which are related to the use of ICT for teaching and the specific goals to foster students’ learning (e.g., using ICT for assessment, collaboration, skill development) (Terzis & Economides, 2011), PU can also be conceptualized as a multidimensional construct. In sum, teachers’ perceptions on whether ICT could improve their job performance may not only refer to the use of ICT in general (unidimensionality) but rather to the usefulness of ICT for specific teaching and learning purposes in the classroom (multidimensionality). Consequently, a modeling approach is needed that accounts for the complex nature of PU.

Research on models considering technology acceptance and ICT integration (Venkantesh et al., 2003; Teo, 2011), has revealed significant relations between different teacher-related factors (e.g., ICT self-efficacy, ICT anxiety, gender and age) and ICT use, acceptance and/or integration as outcome variables, pointing to positive relations of PU to ICT self-efficacy and ICT use in classrooms (Ifenthaler & Schweinbenz, 2013; Liaw & Huang, 2013). Moreover, since age negatively affected teachers’ integration of and attitudes towards ICT, one may expect that this effect might also be negative for PU. Since the relations described have often been investigated structurally in the context of technology acceptance theory (e.g., Teo, 2009), studying the correlates of PU can be used to validate our multidimensional view of the construct.

Using this argumentation as a backdrop, the present study address following research questions:

1. How can the factorial structure of teachers’ perceived usefulness of ICT be described?

2. To what extent is teachers’ perceived usefulness of ICT related to teachers’ ICT self-efficacy, use of ICT for teaching and learning, and age?

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