Adoption of M-learning apps: A sequential mediation analysis and the moderating role of personal innovativeness in information technology

Abstract

Within the emerging context of the digitization of the education industry, mobile learning terminals constitute a significant advance in how information is communicated. Previous studies revealed that the influence mechanism proposed by TAM could be extended with other determinants. The impacts of privacy concerns, personal innovativeness in information technology, and conditional process analyses have been underexplored.The primary aim of this study is to examine factors influencing the students’ intentions to continue using mobile learning Apps in the academic context. A further objective is to identify the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying the relationships between continuance intention and its antecedents.The purposive questionnaire was conducted among college students through an online survey, with 293 valid respondents. The quantitative methods through regression analyses and Maximum Likelihood Method Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were employed to assess the proposed models and perform data analyses. The results confirm that the determinants of college students' continuance intention toward M-learning Apps are perceived ease of use (PEU), perceived usefulness (PU), students' perceived satisfaction (SAT), personal innovativeness in information technology (PIIT), and privacy concerns (PC), which together explain 63.4% of the variance of continuance intention (CI). Specifically, privacy concerns impose a weakly negative effect on students' continuance intention, with a coefficient of −0.093. This study also verifies that perceived ease of use on continuance intention was mediated by perceived usefulness and students' satisfaction. It includes a serial mediation as the effect of perceived ease of use on satisfaction flowed through perceived usefulness, where students' satisfaction mediated the impact of perceived usefulness on continuance intention. The total effects of perceived ease of use on continuance intention are 0.633. In addition, the students' perceived satisfaction is marginally moderated by personal innovativeness in information technology, affirming PIIT imposed a quadratic impact on college students’ continuance intention toward M-learning Apps.The study provides valuable insights for educational institutions and educational M-learning software companies on how to utilize M-learning Apps to motivate college students to learn more efficiently and increase students’ engagement with instructors.