Research Roadblocks: How EdTech Burnout Shapes Teacher Trust
The challenges of reaching teachers for research reveal deeper issues about trust, tech fatigue, and the overwhelming pressure educators face daily.
When I began interviewing teachers who were hesitant about increasing the amount of technology used in the classroom, I assumed finding teachers to talk to would be the easy part. I graduated from college in May, and whenever I needed interview participants for class projects, people practically volunteered themselves. This time? Not even close. Teachers were hesitant, cautious, and sometimes openly skeptical about why I wanted to speak with them.
The more outreach I did, the more cancellations rolled in. DMs went unanswered. Most teachers preferred to do the survey, if anything. In one interview I did end up doing with a teacher-turned-TikTok creator, she made a video about me after calling me a "tech person" who wanted to make yet another tool. This surprised me because I never mentioned that we were creating an EdTech tool; in fact, I made sure to say that we explicitly weren't.
After conducting more interviews, I began to really understand the hesitancy teachers were having. I learned quickly that coming from a tech background carries connotations, often negative ones, that shape how teachers see you long before you introduce yourself.
Teachers are bombarded with edtech tools every single year. In both the survey and the interviews, many mentioned feeling burnt out from constant tool adoption. Districts and administrators push new platforms annually, leaving teachers to learn each new system, teach it to their students, and still cover their actual curriculum. When the process becomes overwhelming and teachers drop an expensive tool, districts get frustrated, first blame teachers, and then blame the tool itself. That frustration leads them to search for the next flashy solution, and the cycle begins again. It's no wonder teachers were hesitant to trust yet another person reaching out from "tech."
I'm still figuring out the best way to approach teachers moving forward. If I were to do this again, I think I'd start by introducing myself simply as a recent college graduate wanting to learn more about teacher experiences. I'd also emphasize that our team is small, that this isn't "big tech," and that we aren't trying to sell anything. Maybe even sharing an example of what we hope to learn, or offering something that proves our intentions are genuine, would help lower that initial wall of skepticism.