Comparison Between Technostress Instruments Among Education and Health Care Sectors

Abstract

Background: Online meetings in Teams, Zoom and Google Meet have become a relevant part of daily activities in business, research and education. The Covid-19 pandemic forced employees to move from physical meetings to online meetings with very limited time to familiarize themselves with interfaces and functionalities of the applications. It has widely been reported that use of technology may stress people, and the phenomenon is known as technostress. However, the research about technostress due to online meetings and used tools has still been scarce. Objective: We aimed to measure technostress due to online meetings and its factors among university teachers and researchers, and clerical employees. We also aimed to compare which measure (dependent variable) would be the most reliable. Methods: A survey was conducted and the data were handled by SPSS-26 statistical package and AMOS. Statistical analyses were done by linear regressions, correlations, analysis of variance, and both experimental and confirmatory factor analysis. The used dependent variables of analyses were the sum variables of Cohen-4 stress measure and Salanova's technostress measure. Results: Analyses showed that increased online meeting hours due to Covid-19 pandemic has statistically significant impact on perceived technostress. The impact of user interfaces of online meeting tools on perceived technostress was the most relevant factor. Other significant factors were e.g., information security and topics of the meetings. Technostress between genders was statistically non-significant but age was a significant factor. Cohen-4 stress measure was not adequate for technostress assessments, whereas Salanova's technostress measure worked well. Conclusion: Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the use of online meetings tools. Even if tools have been useful and the relevant part of office work, the use of tools may affect technostress. The most relevant factor for technostress was the user interfaces. Based on the result, we recommend software companies to focus on developing user interfaces and assessing user experiences of online meeting tools.