The Antecedents of Students’ Expectation Confirmation Regarding Electronic Textbooks

Continuance intention is the attitude of an individual who has performed an act, adopted a behavior or used a technology in the past to once again perform the act, adopt the behavior or use the technology. In studies of continuance intentions a key variable is expectation confirmation. Expectation confirmation is the degree to which an individual’s attitudes or experiences pre adoption or use match those after adoption or use. Expectation confirmation has routinely been found to be meaningful in explaining continuance intentions. Yet, little is understood about the variables influencing expectation confirmation. The question addressed in this research examines the variables influencing expectation confirmation in the specific environment of students attitudes toward electronic textbooks. A theoretical model grounded in social cognitive theory is developed and estimated using a structural equations approach. The data were provided by a questionnaire distributed to students of a medium-size university in the western United States. All the included respondents had used an electronic textbook in the past. The results showed that electronic textbooks’ perceived usefulness and self-efficacy directly influence expectation confirmation in meaningful ways. Furthermore, self-efficacy was found to indirectly influence expectation confirmation through perceived usefulness. The standardized paths from the antecedents of ease of use, arousal, and access speed significantly influence self-efficacy. Similarly, the standardized path coefficients for the antecedents of social norm and arousal had meaningful influences on perceived usefulness.