Student attitudes towards and use of ICT in course study, work and social activity: A technology acceptance model approach

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—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. Introduction Educational leaders and governments have for more than a decade promoted the desirability of increased use of information and communication technology (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, p. 23).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 & Krause, 2008). 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 & Darby, 2008). 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 Experiences of eLearning Programme (JISC, 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 parttime. 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. British Journal of Educational Technology Vol 43 No 1 2012 71–84 doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2010.01142.x © 2010 The Authors. British Journal of Educational Technology © 2010 Becta. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. A review of the literature identified a body of work on the technology acceptance model (TAM), 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 subscales 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 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. 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 multifaceted 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, Perceived Ease