UTAUT Model for Blended Learning: The Role of Gender and Age in the Intention to Use Webinars

Abstract

Introduction Asynchronous information and communication tools like discussion forums, electronic mails, blogs, and wikis have been used for several decades in many fields. In the education context, asynchronous electronic means were used to reinforce interactions between students and teachers. In 2009, more than 74% of American higher educational institutions agreed that online education is an important component of their long-term strategy (Allen & Seaman, 2010). Even though the results about the acceptance of online instruction by faculties are mixed, Allen and Seaman (2010) have confirmed that the percentage of chief academic officers that think that students' retention is a greater problem for online courses was twice as large as those who disagree. According to some authors (Allen, Bourhis, Burrel, & Mabry, 2002; Muilenburg & Berge, 2001), interaction is known to be a sine qua non condition to students' satisfaction and retention. Synchronous tools were, therefore, seen as an additional component to strengthen live communication between the different stakeholders of the distance-learning environment (Johnson, 2006). The accessibility and ease of use of both asynchronous and synchronous technologies made it easier to respond to various students' needs by providing courses and even programs fully online. In the last decade, there has been a great amount of interest in mixing the advantages of online courses with those of face-to-face courses by offering another type of course delivery mode called blended learning. Blended learning consists of blending face-to-face and online delivery in order to reinforce the interaction and direct contact of students with the other participants in a course (Allen et al., 2002). To do so, technologies like webinars offer support to instructors by ensuring efficient synchronous communications. As technologies represent the spearhead of blended learning, their acceptance by students is essential to the success of their use. However, empirical studies that have tried to evaluate the acceptance of webinars by students are not abundant. We deem it important to explore this avenue because student readiness is one of the success factors of blended learning (Graham, 2006). In this study, we aim to identify factors that motivate students to use webinars in a blended learning course. These factors were further analyzed according to age and sex. Obtained results will not only add scientific evidence to the literature about blended learning, webinars, and technology adoption, but they could also lead to a better practical understanding of the factors that may incite or discourage students to use webinar technologies in blended higher education. The following section includes a background about blended learning, the webinar concept, and the acceptance models used in the information systems field. The research objective and questions are then proposed, followed by the research model, variables, and hypotheses. The description of the sample and the procedure is provided before presenting and discussing the results. Background Blended Learning According to Graham (2006), blended learning is a buzzword that is still ambiguous. Most authors agree on the definition of blended learning systems as a combination of face-to-face instruction with computer-mediated instruction (Graham, 2006; Rooney, 2003; Young, 2002). This definition overrides the broad vision of blended learning as a combination of instructional modalities or methods. As such, blended learning is the result of the convergence of two archetypal learning environments: distributed environments that have been strengthened thanks to the communication and interaction features of new technologies (synchronous and asynchronous) and the traditional face-to-face learning environment (Graham, 2006). These environments were matched in different forms and combinations in order to facilitate teaching and learning (Duhaney, 2004). …