Review by: Schönwald, Ingrid (2004-07-08)

Students’ acceptance is increasingly perceived as a key element in the successful integration of web-based information communication technologies into the teaching and learning process. The authors of this study develop and test a model combining the technology acceptance model and the literature on change implementation to understand students’ acceptance of a CMS in a management education context.

Based on the technology-acceptance-model (TAM), the authors propose a model with five hypotheses:

1. Perceived usefulness of a CMS will be positively related to a student’s attitude toward the system.
2. Perceived ease of use of a CMS will be positively related to a student’s attitude toward the system.
3. A student’s attitude toward a CMS will be positively related to the student’s intention to use the system.
4. A student’s intention to use a CMS will be positively related to a student’s use of the system.
5. Perceived ease of use of a CMS will be positively related to perceived usefulness of the system.

Referring to the literature on resistance to change, the authors expand the model by nine hypotheses regarding the influence of change motivating factors (e. g. perceived faculty encouragement to use the CMS) and change enabling factors (e. g. perceived availability of technical support for the CMS) on student’s acceptance.

An empirical study to test the hypotheses was conducted at a large university in the north-eastern United States, which has implemented WebCT as CMS. The data collection used a questionnaire survey to 243 students registered in nine business courses. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling with maximum likelihood estimation to test the hypotheses.

The results of the empirical study largely support the hypotheses, except for three hypotheses: The relationship between the students’ awareness of the capabilities of the system and the perceived usefulness of the system was not supported, instead this factor was positively related to the perceived ease of use. Also the access to the system and self-efficacy in using the Web did not correlate significantly to the ease of use of the CMS. All other hypotheses were supported.

The findings indicate that the students are strongly influenced by perceived performance consequences and by social influences from their instructors and their peers in assessing the usefulness of a new CMS. Students were more likely to perceive the system to be easy to use if they believed that there was adequate technical support available when they needed help with the system, and if they had greater prior experience in using computers and the Web. Instructors appear to play an important role in understanding student reactions to new instructional technologies, as they can influence student responses to such systems through their role as change agents using interpersonal and managerial skills to actively encourage student acceptance of the system. Particularly in an academic setting in which peer encouragement might play a greater role in affecting individual behaviour, it is important for implementers of a new information system to identify early adopters among the students and use them as champions of the system.

While this study focuses on the individual level and examined students’ perceptions of the change implementation context the authors suggest that future research could extend the study to examine change processes at the group or organisational levels.