Abstract
This paper seeks to explore factors that determine the university student’s acceptance and adoption behavior towards online education platforms in Saudi Arabia (SA) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research relied mainly on two theories: Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Five different constructs were utilized from those theories to investigate the university student’s intention toward using online education platforms. The proposed model and its five hypotheses were tested by conducting a quantitative survey across social media to university students from different regions around SA. For the model validity, the measurement model was analyzed using a structural equation modeling technique applied using SmartPLS software. The survey sample consisted of 708 university students in different regions of SA. The analysis results show that Performance Expectancy (PE) and Facilitating Conditions (FC) affect students’ Attitude toward Using (ATU) and that ATU positively affects Behavioral Intention (BI). Nevertheless, Effort Expectancy (EE) is not significantly related to ATU. Thus, the level of difficulty in using the online education platform is not an effective determinant factor that would change the student’s attitude.
Highlights
The world began to face a pandemic that started in China and gradually swept through most of the world (Chen et al, 2020a)
3.1 Hypothesis This research suggests that different models and their factors influence the adoption of Blackboard LMS: Effort Expectancy (EE), Effort Expectancy (EE), and Facilitating Conditions (FC) from the UTAUT model; and Attitude toward Using (ATU) from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) model. 3.1.1 UTAUT Model Hypothesis Venkatesh et al (2003) thought about the likenesses and contrasts among the eight models which recently utilized with regards to the information systems, all of which had their roots in sociology, psychology, and communications
The critical constructs of UTAUT are Effort Expectancy (EE): the amount of effort required to use a new system/technology; Performance Expectancy (PE): which is the degree to which a person believes that using a new system/technology will aid in improving job performance, Social Influence (SI): the individual’s perception of how important it is for others to think that he/she can use the new system/technology, and Facilitating Conditions (FC): the degree to which a person assumes that the available organizational and technological infrastructure facilitate the use of a new system/technology
Summary
The world began to face a pandemic that started in China and gradually swept through most of the world (Chen et al, 2020a). On March 9, 2020, in-school suspension was declared in Saudi Arabia (MOE, 2021), as well as in most countries, according to the preventive and precautionary measures recommended by competent health authorities These measures prompted all universities to develop plans to continue providing their services to their students during the home quarantine period imposed by governments to limit the spread of the pandemic (Chen et al, 2020a). Online education creates communication between a teacher and students, helps in developing new teaching methods and modern learning styles, provides educational services anytime and anywhere, and enables course and lecture delivery via the internet (Al-Sharif, 2020). This study asks the following research question: what factors affected students’ acceptance of online education in Saudi universities during the COVID-19 pandemic?
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