What is Adoption of an Innovation

Electronic gaming in education remains a theoretical or at best marginal issue as long as it is not adopted in general educational settings. The latter, however, not only depends on the intrinsic values or advantages discussed in other contributions to this volume. Rather, electronic gaming in education provides an interesting example for a complex adoption process where individual choices, organizational frameworks, and educational policies, as well as attitudes in the society at-large, interfere in the diffusion of gaming devices and the adoption of gaming for learning processes. After introducing an analytical framework for structuring such processes of the diffusion of innovations, the authors present empirical evidence from the adoption process of electronic gaming in Germany. The results are discussed focusing on the role of several influencing factors on the scope and the speed of innovations. The chapter concludes with possible generalizations departing from the specific situation and the tradition of education in Germany.