Effects of cognitive style on user acceptance of blogs and podcasts

Abstract

Blogs and podcasts are emerging Web technologies that have been adopted by educators to facilitate oncampus and distance education. However, little is known about user acceptance of these technologies. In this paper, we empirically test a theoretical model to examine the effects of individual's cognitive style on user acceptance of blogs and podcasts. We incorporated a course blog and series of lecture podcasts in a Web programming course and collected students' feedback on the technology usage. Empirical findings suggest that individual's cognitive style has significant effects on user acceptance of blogs and podcasts. However, students with innovative cognitive style are more likely to perceive these technologies as useful and easy-to-use as compared to their adaptor counterparts. Also, innovators perceive podcasts as more useful than blog whilst blog as more easy-to-use than podcasts. © 2009 IEEE.