With the increased availability of technology to teachers, it becomes important for researchers and educators alike to understand why teachers choose to use technology for educational purposes. In this study, I use a weak version of the Computers as Social Actors (CASA) hypothesis (Reeves and Nass, 1996; Nass and Moon, 2000) to extend the concept of trust in human-human relationships to trust in human-computer relationships. I review and extend conceptualizations of trust from multiple disciplines to trust in educational technology. Since trust develops over time, preservice teachers who are still developing their relationship with technology were studied. An instrument consisting of vignettes entailing different levels of risk, designed to measure preservice teacher trust in educational technology, was piloted and found to be reliable. Then, 136 preservice teachers in a large midwestern university completed an online instrument designed to explore the following issues: how trusting people compares with trusting technology; whether the level of situation risk affects how much preservice teachers say they will trust a digital technology and whether they report they will use a particular digital technology; how demographics and individual skills (gender, race and ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, what level the teacher plans to teach, what content area the preservice teacher feels most equipped to teach, and computer self-efficacy), psychological traits (how trusting the person is in general and how risky the person is in general), and experiential factors (experience with technology in classes) contribute to that preservice teacher's decision to trust the technology; and to what extent and in what ways the explanatory variables for trusting a digital technology also explain what a preservice teacher reports about future usage of digital technology. A combination of results from scale reliabilities, a correlation analysis between general trust scores and trust in educational technology scores, and a review of the literature, suggests that trusting people is conceptually similar to and different than trusting technology. Trusting people and trusting technology both involve consideration of the reliability, competence, and honesty of the trustee. When trusting people, benevolence and openness are also considered. Qualitative data suggest reasons for teachers' use of educational technology were technologically and pedagogically specific, but not influenced by the risk level entailed in the situation. Trusting technology seemed to be based on both the specific technology and the risk level of the situation. Regression analyses found that participants who were more confident with technology and had positive experiences with digital technology in their Teacher Education classes were more likely to say they trust digital technology. The more preservice teachers said they trust digital technology and the more positive their experiences with digital technology in their Teacher Education classes, the more likely they were to report they would use educational technology. Implications of results and the use of vignettes in instrument construction are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]