The Extended Technology Acceptance Model (ETAM): Examining Students’ Acceptance of Online Learning During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This study contributes to the existing literature on online learning during COVID-19 pandemic in higher education by investigating the relationships between the cognitive variables and students' adoption of online learning. Based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), some hypotheses we formulated to test the links between TAM constructs and online learning anxiety as an antecedent. This study adopted structural equation modeling (SEM) to scrutinize technology adoption for a sample of 569 students in Oman. The results indicated that attitude towards online learning is a strong predictor of technology adoption during COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, both the perceived usefulness of online learning and perceived ease of online use yielded a significant contribution of attitude. Besides, online learning anxiety affected both the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of online use negatively where perceived ease of use is predicted largely while perceived usefulness is predicted modestly. In the light of the previous findings, some recommendations and implications are provided.