عوامل موثر بر پذیرش مهندسان از سیستم های آموزش الکترونیکی ناهمگام در شرکت های با تکنولوژی بالا

With the rapid change in all types of working environment, there is a need to implement electronic learning (e-learning) systems to train people in new technologies, products, and services. However, the large investment in e-learning has made user acceptance an increasingly critical issue for technology implementation and management. Although user acceptance received fairly extensive attention in prior research, efforts were needed to examine or validate previous results, especially in different technologies, user populations, and/or organizational contexts. We therefore proposed a new construct, perceived credibility, to examine the applicability of the technology acceptance model (TAM) in explaining engineers’ decisions to accept e-learning, and address a pragmatic technology management issue. Based on a sample of 140 engineers taken from six international companies, the results strongly support the extended TAM in predicting engineers’ intention to use e-learning.

The shift from a product-based to a knowledge-based economy has resulted in an increased demand for knowledge workers who are capable of higher-order thinking and reasoning to solve intricate problems in the work place. This requires organizations to educate and train anyone, anytime, and from anywhere. For this task, asynchronous e-learning, defined as instructional content or learning experience delivered or enabled by electronic technologies including the Internet, intranets, and extranets [16] and [25], breaks the limitations of time and space and also creates many benefits, including reduced cost, regulatory compliance, meeting business needs, retraining of employees, low recurring cost, and customer support [4], [15] and [17]. The impact of e-learning is real and it has received fairly extensive attention from practitioners and information system (IS) researchers [31]. Furthermore, analysts forecast that corporate spending on e-learning programs will top US$ 23 billion by 2004 [21]. E-learning is reported to be a means of solving learning and performance problems and has become an increasingly critical issue. Although there have been rapid advances in hardware and software capabilities, the problem of underutilized systems still remains [22], [28], [29] and [39]. The technology acceptance model (TAM) [10] and [11], adapted from theory of reasoned action (TRA) [3] and [13], has been used as the theoretical basis for many empirical studies of user technology acceptance [33], [35] and [37]. Apparently, it is the most promising way to overcome the problem of underutilized systems. However, e-learning is relatively new and electronic learners (e-learners) are a specific user group. Thus, existing variables of TAM cannot fully reflect e-learners’ motives, requiring a search for additional intrinsic motivation factors. Privacy and security features have been heavily emphasized in the e-commerce context [5], [14] and [32]. Protecting private information (e.g., education records3) will also affect e-learners’ willingness to accept e-learning. These issues have not yet been empirically examined in an e-learning context. This study was started to respond both to prior studies’ indication of the need for a broader exploration of factors beyond the original TAM [20] and [23] and to a prior study’s suggestion for more examination of the role computer self-efficacy plays in predicting IT usage behavior [7]. The study proposes a new construct, “perceived credibility,” to enhance understanding of an engineer’s acceptance of e-learning. Also, it shows that computer self-efficacy has a significant effect on behavioral intention to use e-learning.

Using the extended model as a theoretical framework, this study helps practitioners and researchers better understand why people resist using e-learning, predict how users will respond to e-learning, and increase user acceptance by improving the techniques and processes by which they are implemented. Also, it can help researchers considerate our findings for development and evaluation of e-learning theories. Major contributions are: 1. Our results demonstrate how perceived credibility influences users’ attitudes toward using e-learning: they must assure e-learners that they are free of privacy and security threats. 2. Perceived usefulness has the most significant direct effect on behavioral intention to use e-learning: they must provide useful content to attract ‘pragmatic’ users to use. 3. Perceived ease of use was found to be an important antecedent of perceived usefulness and perceived credibility. User-friendliness is also important for the success of e-learning and will increase e-learners’ perceptions of perceived usefulness and perceived credibility. 4. TAM has been extended in an e-learning context. 5. Computer self-efficacy had a positive effect on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, whereas it had a negative effect on perceived credibility. Four limitations of this study should be noted. First, investigating acceptance of e-learning is relatively new. The findings and their implications are obtained from a single study of a particular technology in Taiwan. Thus, caution needs to be taken when generalizing our findings. Second, responses were voluntary and thus inevitably subject to self-selection biases. Conceivably, users who were interested in, had used, or were currently using e-learning were more likely to respond. Third, the R-square reported by the current research represents another limitation: there may be a need to search for additional variables (e.g., subjective norm, gender, internet experience, level of education) to improve our ability to predict usage intentions more accurately. Finally, the study was conducted with a snapshot research approach. Additional efforts are needed to evaluate the validity of the proposed model and our findings. There are several implications for e-learning management based on our findings. 1. It is important for e-learning to be useful by enhancing the recipient’s job performance or productivity. 2. Although perceived usefulness was the most significant direct effect on behavioral intention to use, perceived ease of use has a stronger total effect than perceived usefulness. Therefore, being a user-friendly system is also important for its success. 3. This study confirms the significant influence of perceived credibility on behavioral intention to use e-learning. It must assure e-learners that they are free of privacy and security threats. In addition, perceived credibility seems to influence users’ attitudes toward using e-learning. 4. Perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived credibility are more “system-specific” in the sense that they refer to the perceptions of a particular system, whereas computer self-efficacy as examined here is more general. Managers and developers can increase users’ usage intention through this. In businesses, human resource managers can provide training courses to increase employees’ familiarity with computing technologies. Such education need not be formal and may take any form (e.g., seminars and informal discussions).