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Student attitudes towards and use of ICT in course
study, work and social activity: a technology
acceptance model approach
Journal Item
How to cite:
Edmunds, Rob; Thorpe, Mary and Conole, Grainne (2012). Student attitudes towards and use of ICT in
course study, work and social activity: a technology acceptance model approach. British Journal of Educational
Technology, 43(1) pp. 71–84.
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2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology; 2010 Becta
Version: Accepted Manuscript
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http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01142.x
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Student attitudes towards and use of ICT in course study, work and
social activity: a Technology Acceptance model approach.
Rob Edmunds, Mary Thorpe and Grainne Conole
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Abstract
The increasing use of information and communication technology (ICT) in higher
education has been explored largely in relation to student experience of coursework
and university life. Students’ lives and experience beyond the university have been
largely unexplored. Research into student experience of ICT used a validated model -
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) - to explore the influence of work and
social/leisure contexts as well as course study, on attitudes towards and take up of
technology. The results suggest that usefulness and ease of use are key dimensions of
students’ attitudes towards technology in all three contexts but that ICT is perceived
most positively in the context of work and technology use at work is an important
driver for technology use in other areas.
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Introduction
Educational leaders and governments have for more than a decade promoted the
desirability of increased use of ICT in students’ experience of study at university. This
was one of the emphases in the 1997 Dearing Report in the UK, which recommended
that ‘all higher education institutions in the UK should have in place overarching
communications and information strategies by 1999/2000’ (Dearing, 1997, p23).With
the growth of the Web since then, and particularly the development of highly efficient
search engines and social networking tools, entrants to university have increased their
personal use of ICT, year on year (Caruso & Kvavik, 2005, Kennedy, Judd,
Churchward, Gray and Krause, 2009). The impact of ICT on study and learning
practices has generated research seeking to identify both the extent of ICT usage and
the effects this is having on student experience at university more broadly (Conole,
De Laat, Dillon and Darby, 2006).
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC, UK Higher Education Funding
Council) has funded two phases of enquiry into a holistic view of learners’ experience
of ICT, focusing on the social as well as study aspects of this experience. One of the
studies funded by the JISC phase 2 Learner Experience Programme (2006 to 2009),
broadened this approach and focused on the work as well as study and leisure contexts
of students. The project studied students on six work-related Open University courses
where the practices learned are relevant to specific employment contexts. Almost all
students were in employment as well as studying part-time. While all the courses
require students to use technology, a key aim of the research was to explore the
possible effects of a students’ current work context on their attitudes towards and take
up of ICT. A survey developed to explore this as part of the research, provides the
focus for this paper.
A review of the literature identified a body of work on the Technology Acceptance
Model, which has identified ease of use and perceived usefulness as key factors in
take-up of technologies within the work place. The present survey adapted the TAM
questionnaire in order to explore technology acceptance through a comparison of
work, study and leisure contexts.
The Technology Acceptance Model
One of the most well known models investigating resistance to new technologies in
the workplace was developed by Davis (1989) in the Technology Acceptance Model
(TAM). In its simplest 1989 form, Davis devised a scale that produced measures on
two factors, ease of use and perceived usefulness. Scores on these two sub-scales have
been shown to correlate with the use/acceptance of technology, particularly in
information systems (Davis, 1989).
The TAM takes forward the idea that an individual’s actions can be predicted from a
number of known variables, which constitute two factors: perceived ease of use and
perceived usefulness. Perceived ease of use is defined by Davis (1989) to be the
degree to which an individual believes that a particular system would be free of effort,
while perceived usefulness is the degree to which an individual believes that a
particular system will enhance job performance. Both these two constructs achieved a
reliability measure of Cronbach’s Alpha (Cronbach, 1951) greater than 0.90 in two
successive studies (Davis, 1989), suggesting high internal reliability within each
scale. Correlations between the subscales and actual system use in figure 1, suggest a
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causal pattern where perceived ease of use predicts perceived usefulness, which in
turn predicts use. Additionally, usefulness is more strongly linked to Usage than Ease
of Use is linked to Usage. This suggests users will put up with some difficulty in use,
if the system provides some critical function.
Figure 1. Model suggesting causal direction of influence on technology acceptance
(Davis, 1989)
Both subscales also correlated significantly with reported indicators of technology use
for those systems under investigation. This specification of the link between self-
report and usage is encouraging and the TAM is a good instrument to understand how
people come to accept technology and continue in its use. The widespread use of the
TAM also suggests it is applicable to many areas of use, such as education and social
applications of technology. However, the interaction between technology and its
acceptance for use is multi-faceted and so the TAM with just its two constructs of
ease of use and usefulness may not capture all the components necessary to predict
user acceptance.
Investigating learning with the TAM
Roca and Gagne (2008) investigated the use of e-learning using an integration of
TAM and self-determination theory (SDT). SDT focuses on the three motivational
needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. Autonomy concerns the individual
feeling in control of their own actions, competence is effectiveness of the individual
in the environment and relatedness is the need to feel connected to others, such as
teammates or teachers (Deci & Ryan, 1985). SDT therefore reflects perceptions that
arise from the individual’s interactions with the environment in which technology is
used. To the combination of TAM and SDT was also added the construct of
playfulness, which is about enjoyment in using the system.
Their combined TAM/SDT model suggests that perceived autonomy, perceived
competence and perceived relatedness exert a direct effect on perceived usefulness
and perceived playfulness, which jointly with perceived ease of use are the most
important influences upon e-learning regarding continuance of intention and use.
While this theory uses yet another motivational model it highlights the utility of the
TAM when applied to a learning situation along with other relevant mediating
variables. While the complexity of the SDT approach meant that it was impractical to
use in the context of this study, questions were added to the TAM in order to
incorporate a measure of student motivation and sense of competence in relation to
the context of ICT use.
There have been a number of revisions to the TAM (see Venkatesh & Davis, 2000;
Venkatesh, Davis & Morris, 2007) and also a number of alternative models of user
acceptance of technology such as the motivational model (Vallerand, 1997) the theory
of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and innovation diffusion theory (Rogers, 1995) to
Perceived Ease
of Use
Perceived
Usefulness
System Usage/user
Acceptance
