When Something Useful Is Also Enjoyable: An Empirical Study on the Intention to Use Web-Based Simulations in Higher Education

Abstract

The adoption of web-based simulations in higher education has been evolving significantly in recent years. One of the aspects determining the success of simulations as a teaching method is students’ acceptance. For this reason, this study aims to test a model of students’ adoption of web-based simulations in a university context. We adopted a revised version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to investigate how the interaction between perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived enjoyment (PE) can influence students’ intention to use (ITU) simulations through an increase in user satisfaction (US). We collected data on 191 university students using the TAM based questionnaire and tested our hypothesis with a moderated mediation model. The results support the mediating effect of US in predicting the impact on ITU of the interaction of PU and PE. Consequently, we recommend that designers and stakeholders pay attention to not only users’ PU, but also users’ enjoyment during simulations, so as to increase users’ willingness to adopt simulations as a learning method.