Technology Acceptance and Adoption in Education

Abstract

The chapter provides a comprehensive and up-to-date insight into main research findings in the area of educational technology acceptance, adoption, and usage. Over the past decades, a variety of theoretical perspectives have been advanced to provide an understanding of the determinants of adoption of various technologies used to support the process of knowledge transfer and acquisition. Although some prominent theoretical approaches in educational contexts include Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), as well as Motivational Model (MM), research reveals the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as the most influential model and leading scientific paradigm in investigating acceptance of educational technology by students, teachers, and other stakeholders. Aiming to increase their predictive validity, in numerous empirical studies, models have been extended with different predictive factors, like the most often validated self-efficacy, subjective norm, perceived enjoyment, perceived playfulness, anxiety, social influence, system quality, and facilitating conditions. Research revealed electronic learning (e-learning) as the most common validated mode of delivery, followed by mobile learning (m-learning), learning management system (LMS), personal learning environment (PLE), and massive open online course (MOOC), along with different supportive facilitating technologies used in education such as social media platforms, teaching assistant robots, simulators, as well as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. To enhance explanatory power, new developments in educational technology acceptance and adoption have suggested the need of integration of TAM and UTAUT with other contributing adoption and post-adoption theories and models, together with several established approaches from other fields.