Generation differences in awareness and adoption of technology enhanced anticipatory sets among teachers in Kenya

Digital technologies are increasingly associated with changes in classroom pedagogy, creating renewed interest in micro-pedagogical strategies that enhance student engagement, such as Technology-Enhanced Anticipatory Sets (TEAS). However, limited empirical evidence exists on the factors that shape teachers’ awareness and classroom use of TEAS, particularly across generations and in low-resource educational contexts. The study integrates insights from technology adoption and pedagogical integration frameworks to examine factors associated with awareness and classroom use of TEAS among secondary school teachers. Beyond technology acceptance, the study investigates how digital proficiency, self-efficacy, attitudes, professional experience, and institutional support relate to teachers’ awareness and classroom use of TEAS tools. Using survey data from 351 secondary school teachers, descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and generation-specific binary probit models were estimated to identify determinants of teachers’ awareness and classroom use of videos, animations, digital apps, and images/visuals as TEAS tools. The results indicate generational differences in awareness and classroom use of TEAS. Older teachers demonstrated significantly higher awareness and practice of visual- and video-based TEAS, including greater awareness of animations (58.2% vs. 30.7%, p < 0.001) and images/visuals (90.9%, 63.4%, p < 0.001), and higher classroom use of videos (69.7%, 55.4%, p = 0.006), animations (55.2% vs. 29.0%, p < 0.001), and images/visuals (86.7%, 59.1%, p < 0.001). In generation-specific probit models, digital proficiency showed the strongest statistical association with TEAS usage particularly among older teachers, significantly increasing the likelihood of practicing animations (β = 0.98, p < 0.001), images/visuals (β = 0.70, p < 0.001), and videos (β = 0.54, p < 0.001) while familiarity, self-efficacy, attitudes, and administrative support showed tool- and generation-specific associations. Identifying factors associated with TEAS awareness and classroom use may inform the design of teacher education and professional development initiatives aimed at supporting equitable and effective technology-enhanced pedagogy in resource-constrained settings.