Resistance to Blended Learning in Business and Public Administration Higher Education

Abstract

Although resistance to technology is frequent in teaching, when it comes to resistance to Blended Learning (BL) in higher education, research is scarce and rare in literature, especially in the national. Currently, resistance to BL is a significant problem, although such technology has high rates of growth in several countries. The general objective of this research was to identify and analyze the main dimensions of resistance to BL in higher education in Business and Public Administration in Rio de Janeiro/Brazil, in São Paulo/Brazil, in Malaga/Spain and in the city of Porto/Portugal. After the bibliographic review of themes such as BL, Resistance to Technologies and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technologies (UTAUT), a theoretical structure tested explains the resistance to the BL method. Seven dimensions were used: Self-efficiency, IT Skills, Performance Expectancy, Effort Expectancy, Social Influence, Interactivity and Internal Communication, all directly influencing the Resistance construct. The results indicate that the proposed model had a good fit and that the Self-efficiency and IT Skills constructs had a negative influence on Resistance. The Expectancy dimension had a positive and extremely significant impact on the mitigation of resistance to BL adoption. The other dimensions do not form statistically significant, not conforming their influence on the mitigation of resistance to BL. In the comparison between the four universities researched, EAESP-FGV was the one that showed less resistance to BL adoption and Malaga/Spain was the one that showed more resistance to BL adoption.