Mediating the impact of technology usage on perceived ease of use by anxiety

Abstract

Computerphobic adults including first-year university students have been reported to range from 25% to 50%. Although self-reported computer anxiety has reduced in the past decade, it continues to be a significant issue for many. This is especially true for students of today where the stakes are high when using computers for their course work. Anxiety becomes even more critical when students are taking online courses. Past research has shown that computer experience is a strong predictor of whether or not a user will suffer anxiety symptoms while using a computer. Moreover, a substantial amount of work has been done to study the effect of previous computer experience on anxiety and on ease of use of information technologies using the technology acceptance model. However, few, if any, have investigated the role of anxiety in mediating technology usage experience on perceived ease of use. In this study, technology usage is viewed from two perspectives, the computer and the internet. We study the influence of anxiety in mediating the impact of computer and internet experiences on perceived ease of use. Questionnaire data from 114 university students were analyzed. The context was the use of a quiz tool to practice multiple choice questions. Contrary to most related studies, results indicated that anxiety has no mediating role on the impact of computer experience and perceived ease of use. However, anxiety was shown to present some moderating influence on perceived ease of use.

Introduction

The rate of interest in online learning has been steadily increasing for the past 10 years. More and more researchers, practitioners and institutions have realized the value of online learning. In fact, today online learning has become widely recognized and accepted as an approach to not only enhances the classroom environment but to replace it altogether. Expected productivity gains however, and benefits to students and academic institutions promised by the online learning approach cannot be realized unless they are effectively used (Ivari & Ervasti, 1994). Additionally, acceptance/adoption of the online learning approach has been identified as a critical issue in its successful usage (Deci & Ryan, 1985).

Many theoretical frameworks have been used to measure technology usage satisfaction and adoption; however few have been used in the online learning context. The technology acceptance model (TAM), has been extensively used to understand technology adoption. Fewer studies have used TAM to predict usage. In general, the TAM theorizes that perceived usefulness (PU) influences attitudes towards technology usage (ATT) and is an important determinant to individuals’ intentions to use the technology. The goal of TAM is “to provide an explanation of the determinants of computer acceptance that is in general, capable of explaining user behavior across a broad range of end-user computing technologies and user populations, while at the same time being both parsimonious and theoretically justified” (Adams et al., 1992, Davis, 1986, Davis, 1989, Davis et al., 1989).

According to TAM, a person’s intention to use a specific system is jointly determined by one’s attitude toward using the system and perceived ease of use (PEU). This implies that the easier the system is to use, the greater will be the user’s perceived self efficacy regarding their capacity to use the system comfortably. External variables represented in TAM represent individual differences, situational constraints, organizational characteristics and system characteristics impacting on behavior. TAM emphasizes the importance of how external variables can affect the individuals’ internal decision process when it comes to using a system within organizations. External variables affect PU directly or indirectly through PEU since it influences the user’s near-term perception of usefulness and to the lesser extent long term (Compeau, Higgins, & Huff, 1999). Interaction between systems, direct experience with a system, system characteristics (Chau, 1996), prior experience with similar systems, and domain knowledge determine the user’s perception of ease of use of a system (Lucas & Spitler, 1999). According to previous studies efficacy, intrinsic motivation, cognitive absorption and computer anxiety were all determinants of PEU (Gefen et al., 2003a, Gefen et al., 2003b, Gefen and Straub, 1997 and Pedersen & Nysveen, 2003). Saadé and Bahli (2005) considered two student’s traits, perceived personal innovativeness and enjoyment to study their mediating effects on the impact of perceived usefulness on attitudes in the context of learning tools usage. In addition to these findings they have observed PEU and PU are influenced to some extent by the external variables and the extensions to TAM have been introduced by Venkatesh and Davis (2000), and Venkatesh and Morris (2000) with comprehensive study of the determinants of PEU.

Web-based technologies are designed to facilitate the learning process, and therefore their PEU is a definite necessity, especially where the learners have only recently been introduced to computer and Internet technology. Much effort has been devoted to creating user-friendly graphical user interfaces in software development, in recognition of the importance of PEU (Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). With web-based technologies several studies have pointed out that factors relating to the ease with which information can be found on a web site, and the ease with which information can be understood affect web site’s perceived ease of use (Lederer, Maupin, Sena, & Zhuang, 2000). They identified two constructs related to navigation (ease of finding) and cognition (ease of understanding) that significantly predict PEU of a web site.

Taking the cue from other researchers who worked on the extension of TAM model, we hope in this study to provide additional understanding of what role anxiety (ANX) plays with the PEU construct in TAM. We provide results related to the impact of anxiety on PEU as a moderator in one case and a mediator in the other. Our study involves 114 students that used a learning tool (developed in-house) as part of an introductory course in management information systems. It examines the effect of internet (IE) and computer experiences (CE) on PEU and the effect that ANX has on these relationships. Prior research in information systems has investigated the constructs mentioned herein to understand individual reactions to computer systems (Agarwal and Karahanna, 2000, Howard and Smith, 1986, Vallerand, 1997; and Venkatesh & Davis, 2000), however, few studies, if any, have used online learning tools as the target technology and have directly compared and contrasted the mediating effect of anxiety to understand its impact on IE/CE and PEU relationship.