Abstract
Research: Due to the sudden outbreak of COVID-19 and the resulting pandemic situation, universities were forced to rapidly change their traditional pedagogical and didactical approach by shifting from mostly face-to-face teaching to entirely virtual and online teaching methods. Through this, a “forced” distance learning and teaching situation emerged. This study aimed at investigating the effect of these innovations on the implementation, acceptance, and use of the virtual teaching offer within the framework of the technology acceptance model (TAM).Methods: A total of 218 students and 69 lecturers of a German Medical Faculty completed online questionnaires on the acceptance, satisfaction, and usefulness of the forced distance learning (FDL) and teaching (FDT), respectively. An extended version of the TAM was used to assess the acceptance of the students and lecturers of FDL and FDT. In order to estimate the multivariate dependencies, path analysis was employed using structural equation modeling (SEM).Results: In general, students and lecturers reported being satisfied with the implementation of the FDL and FDT. Regarding the TAM model, the fit indices suggested an acceptable model fit for both groups. The model of the students revealed that the perceived usefulness had a strong predictive power on the attitude toward using and the perceived ease of use also predicted the attitude. The existing technical infrastructure as well as the general media affinity and pandemic-related worries proved to be positively associated with the perceived usefulness while data security worries and organization of online teaching predicted the perceived ease of use in students. The strong positive predictive power of the perceived usefulness for the attitude toward using was also evident in the model for the lecturers and the technical infrastructure predicted the perceived ease of use in the lecturers.Conclusion: The TAM is a suitable framework to represent the implementation, acceptance, and use of the virtual teaching offer during the special pandemic situation at the university. However, personal and structural context factors were important predictors for the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use in the student group. The forced situation for learning and teaching makes it more difficult to predict the actual use of virtual teaching offers solely based on attitude.
Highlights
The emergence of the internet and the development of modern technologies have affected education and learning
Since the students and lecturers had to prepare for a digital semester due to COVIDrelated restrictions, we referred to this matter as “forced distance teaching and learning” (FDT; FDL) in this study
One item each had to be removed from perceived usefulness” (PU), actual system use (AU), general media affinity (GMA), pandemic related worries (PW), and technical infrastructure (TI) in the student version
Summary
The emergence of the internet and the development of modern technologies have affected education and learning. Due to the sudden outbreak of the disease COVID-19, German universities had to prepare an online/digital semester for their students as face-to-face teaching was restricted, and physical classrooms were not allowed [Hochschulrektorenkonferenz (HRK), 2020]. This had to be done under time pressure as the events required quick action. In addition to the theoretical content, studying medicine includes a large number of practical courses, the teaching of practical skills, hands-on exercises, and laboratory work that are difficult to teach or learn virtually Because of these challenges, we were interested in the acceptance and satisfaction of the virtual teaching offer in the Medical Faculty of RWTH Aachen University during the summer term of 2020. Since the students and lecturers had to prepare for a digital semester due to COVIDrelated restrictions, we referred to this matter as “forced distance teaching and learning” (FDT; FDL) in this study
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