Acceptance of Internet-based learning medium: the role of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation
Introduction
The new generation has incorporated the Internet into their daily life. According to a collaborative study,1 93% of college students have access to the Internet. A recent study2 also found that young people are highly active Internet users. For example, 60% go online to download music, 72% check email on a daily basis. 73% get information for school work, and 28% go online for instant messaging with their friends. Because of their high degree of Internet penetration and adoption the Internet is potentially an excellent medium for teaching and learning. Despite the excellent potential of the Internet as a learning medium, its value will not be realized if teachers and students do not accept it for teaching and learning. Moreover, teachers are reluctant to invest their time and effort if they are not confident that students will find the medium acceptable. Thus there is a need to investigate the student acceptance of an Internet-based learning medium (ILM) in order to understand the various drivers influencing acceptance.
One of the primary goals of using an ILM is to support and improve student learning. Like any information systems, user acceptance and usage are important primary measures of system success [16]. Catchpole [9] suggested that successful technology-mediated distant learning must generate student involvement and participation. Similarly, a successful ILM should be widely adopted with active participation from students. An ILM readily accepted by students will be conducive to generating student involvement and participation in the learning process. This again calls for a better understanding of the drivers for ILM acceptance. Building and implementing an Internet-based learning portal is not an inexpensive option for academic institutions.
The technology acceptance model (TAM) has been widely used in explaining IT adoption and usage. However, this model investigates IT adoption and usage primarily from the instrumental perspective [1], focusing mainly on functional or extrinsic motivational drivers such as usefulness and ease-of-use. In the context of student acceptance of ILM, we believe intrinsic motivators grounded on emotional feeling, such as happiness and unhappiness, joy and frustration, pity and anger, etc., also play a crucial role in explaining user acceptance and usage. As argued by Davis et al. [13] and others [24], [35], [36], the adoption of new technology is predominantly determined by both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators. Incorporating both into TAM may therefore provide better explanation and prediction of student acceptance and usage of ILM. Accordingly, the key objective of this study is to examine the role of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators in explaining student acceptance of ILM.
Section snippets
Theoretical background
The range of research related to learning and teaching using the Internet is unexpectedly broad [40]. Piccoli et al. [29] proposed a research framework for the assessment of learning outcomes associated with web-based virtual learning environments. Riva [31] examined social acts in online learning environments, focusing on the creation and maintenance of “virtual learning communities”. Anderson [3] applied aptitude–treatment interaction to explore the impact of individual differences on student
Research model and hypotheses
Fig. 1 depicts the research model used in this study. This model integrates the motivational perspective into the original TAM, and includes an intrinsic motivator (perceived enjoyment) as a salient determinant of student intention to use ILM.
Data collection
Our study aimed at investigating students’ adoption of ILM. The ILM was known as FaBWeb; it was created as an Internet learning portal containing lecture notes, chat room facilities, and streaming videos of lectures to provide out-of-classroom support to the regular campus-based students at a university in Hong Kong. Students could download lecture notes and video recordings of past classes. Student could also discuss material with their classmates and instructors using the online chat room.
Results
Following the two-step analytical procedures [19], we first examine the measurement model, then the structural model. The rationale of this two-step approach is to ensure our conclusion on structural relationship is drawn from a set of measurement instrument with desirable psychometric properties.
Conclusions and discussion
Motivated by a need to understand the underlying drivers of student adoption of Internet-based learning medium, our research incorporated a motivational perspective into TAM, and postulated perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment as the key factors affecting student adoption of ILM. The measurement model was confirmed with adequate convergent and discriminant validity with respect to the measurement of all the constructs in the research model. The structural model provided a good fit to
Acknowledgement
The work described in this paper was partially supported by a grant from City University of Hong Kong (Project No. 7001160).
Matthew K.O. Lee is professor of information systems and associate dean of the Business School at the City University of Hong Kong. He holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK and is professionally qualified as a barrister-at-law and a Chartered Information Systems Engineer. He is interested in the management of IT adoption and diffusion, knowledge management, electronic commerce, and the legal, ethical and policy aspects of IT. He is an Associate Editor of Electronic Commerce Research
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Matthew K.O. Lee is professor of information systems and associate dean of the Business School at the City University of Hong Kong. He holds a PhD from the University of Manchester, UK and is professionally qualified as a barrister-at-law and a Chartered Information Systems Engineer. He is interested in the management of IT adoption and diffusion, knowledge management, electronic commerce, and the legal, ethical and policy aspects of IT. He is an Associate Editor of Electronic Commerce Research and Applications. He has published over 100 research articles in outlets including in the CACM, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Information and Management, and Information Systems Frontiers among others.
Christy M.K. Cheung is currently a PhD student of information systems at the City University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include IT adoption and continuance, electronic commerce, and knowledge management. She has published over 20 referred articles in international journals and conference proceedings. She received the Best Paper Award in ICIS 2003 and she is the participant of ICIS 2004 Doctoral Consortium.
Zhaohui Chen is a consultant in the BearingPoint, China. He obtained an MPhil degree in Information Systems from City University of Hong Kong and a BBA degree in Business Management from Beijing University, China. His research and consulting interests focus on SAP, information technology adoption and mobile commerce.