Computer self-efficacy in an ongoing use context

The objective of this study is to examine whether computer self-efficacy continues to influence the use of information technology in an ongoing use context where experienced personnel use computers to do complex and dynamic knowledge work. Hypotheses are proposed concerning the determinants and consequences of computer self-efficacy. Using a survey of 153 engineers engaged in computer intensive design work, a preliminary test of the hypotheses is conducted using structural equation modelling (LISREL). The results suggest that the impact of self-efficacy on the effectiveness of ongoing computer use may be indirect, mediated by intrinsic motivation. The results also suggest that, in the ongoing use context, user autonomy, learning capabilities, and collegial support are determinants of computer self-efficacy. The conclusion is that computer self-efficacy continues to play an important role among ongoing users. Its influence is not limited to the early stages of user interaction with technology (i.e., adoption or training).     

Factors affecting e-collaboration technology use among management students

This paper describes an exploratory study of 225 management students in a medium-sized university in southern Spain. The influences of gender and previous experience as determinants of technology use were analysed. Furthermore, a modified Technology Acceptance Model, using SEM, was applied to explain the influence of perceived computer self-efficacy on the intention to use Internet-based e-collaboration technologies in the learning–teaching process. This was completed with qualitative data from unstructured interviews with ten students. Our results suggest that the management student cannot be considered an advanced user of the Internet. Computer self-efficacy has a positive influence on intention to use the system. This intention is also influenced by attitude towards the system, but not directly by perceived usefulness. These and other contradictory findings are analysed in the paper.     

Healthcare Technology Self-Efficacy (HTSE) and its influence on individual attitude: An empirical study

Previous research on technology acceptance and adoption has established perceived self-efficacy as an important factor influencing user acceptance of information technologies. However, research on self-efficacy perceptions and its effect on user attitude in the context of health technologies is limited. This study identifies three self-efficacy factors that may be important for shaping individual attitude toward healthcare technologies. This research proposes a new context-specific self-efficacy factor, Healthcare Technology Self-Efficacy (HTSE) and a conceptual model incorporating HTSE and two existing self-efficacy factors, General Self-Efficacy (GSE) and Computer Self-Efficacy (CSE). The conceptual model is validated using a survey of 314 participants. We found that HTSE has a positive influence on attitude toward the use of health technologies. We also found that two existing self-efficacy constructs (GSE and CSE) have positive relationships with HTSE. However these two factors did not have any significant influence on attitude toward health technology use, contrary to our expectations. Rather, HTSE mediates the relationships between GSE and attitude and the relationship between CSE and attitude in the context of health technology use behavior. The results of this study have important implications for both research and practice in the healthcare technology domain.     

Mediating the impact of technology usage on perceived ease of use by anxiety

Computerphobic adults including first-year university students have been reported to range from 25% to 50%. Although self-reported computer anxiety has reduced in the past decade, it continues to be a significant issue for many. This is especially true for students of today where the stakes are high when using computers for their course work. Anxiety becomes even more critical when students are taking online courses. Past research has shown that computer experience is a strong predictor of whether or not a user will suffer anxiety symptoms while using a computer. Moreover, a substantial amount of work has been done to study the effect of previous computer experience on anxiety and on ease of use of information technologies using the technology acceptance model. However, few, if any, have investigated the role of anxiety in mediating technology usage experience on perceived ease of use. In this study, technology usage is viewed from two perspectives, the computer and the internet. We study the influence of anxiety in mediating the impact of computer and internet experiences on perceived ease of use. Questionnaire data from 114 university students were analyzed. The context was the use of a quiz tool to practice multiple choice questions. Contrary to most related studies, results indicated that anxiety has no mediating role on the impact of computer experience and perceived ease of use. However, anxiety was shown to present some moderating influence on perceived ease of use.     

Assessing the effects of self-efficacy and competence on individual satisfaction with computer use: an IT student perspective

To explore the determinants of the success of applying computing technology to computer-related work, this study proposed a theoretical model that adopts individual satisfaction as a surrogate for the success of computer learning. Based on social cognitive theory (SCT) and competence-related literature, this study considered self-efficacy, computer competence, and near-term and long-term consequences as the determinants of individual satisfaction with computer use. The research model was tested using a questionnaire survey of 367 IT-related senior undergraduate students in five colleges. The empirical results identified self-efficacy as a strong and positive antecedent of competence, and confirmed the positive effects of self-efficacy on perceived consequences. Additionally, computer competence was found to affect individual satisfaction with computer use directly and indirectly. Moreover, perceived consequences influenced individual satisfaction more than did competence. Overall, this study provided empirical results involved theoretical explanations for understanding the effects of self-efficacy and competence on computer learning behavior. The limitations of the present study were discussed for researchers and practitioners.     

A contingency model of computer and Internet self-efficacy

Information system researchers have recently devoted considerable attention to the concept of computer self-efficacy in order to understand computer user behavior and system use. This article reports on the development and examination of a contingency model of computer and Internet self-efficacy. User attitude and computer anxiety were assumed to influence the development of computer and Internet self-efficacy. Measures of user attitude, computer anxiety, computer self-efficacy, and Internet self-efficacy were used in a university environment to collect 347 responses at both the beginning and end of an introductory computer course. Results suggested that training significantly improved computer and Internet self-efficacy. Respondents with ‘favorable’ attitudes toward computers improved their self-efficacy significantly more than respondents with ‘unfavorable’ attitudes. Respondents with ‘low’ computer anxiety improved their self-efficacy significantly more than respondents with ‘high’ computer anxiety. The interaction effect between attitude and anxiety was significant for computer self-efficacy scores but not for Internet self-efficacy scores. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

An Integrated Model of Voice-User Interface Continuance Intention: The Gender Effect

Advanced speech recognition technology facilitated the development of voice-based smart devices. Voice user interface (VUI) is now a common feature on smartphones, computers, smart home devices, and car systems. The fragmented and context focused literature on VUI motivates this examination of the relationship between perceived quality and customer satisfaction in VUI portable devices. This study is the first to introduce extrinsic motivational factors as an extension to Wixom and Todd’s model. These additional antecedent factors add an enriched explanation of VUI user behavior. This study is also the first to consider the role of gender in a VUI behavior model. Our findings suggest that the proposed driving factors, including trust, perceived risks, perceived enjoyment, and mobile self-efficacy, significantly affect VUI user attitudes, which influence their continuance intention. Our results also address the role of gender on the association of attitude toward VUI use and its antecedents. The findings show that perceived risk (privacy concerns) and perceived ease of use are more influential on VUI use behavior of males than females. However, the effect of trust and mobile self-efficacy play a more crucial role for females than males.     

Computer use and the gender gap: The issue of access, use, motivation, and performance

Since the beginning of computerization, it has been of interest whether there are differential effects on computer behavior, in particular in terms of computer access, computer use, and motivational variables, such as computer self-efficacy. The current research addresses the questions if the gender-related differences in this respect persist to the present day and if there is also a difference in actual performance characteristics. A sample of 48 university students (23 male) was administered a technology self-efficacy questionnaire, a survey on computer access, recorded a user diary, and turned in a computer task. Results show that the gender gap is closing as far as computer access and self-efficacy are concerned. Also, female and male students report comparable amounts of computer usage for their studies. User behavior appears to be gender-specific as males spend more time at the computer for personal purposes. There is also some evidence that male students outperform female students at a computer task (remastering of Power-Point slides). Conclusions for creating computer-based learning environments are discussed.     

How and why trust matters in post-adoptive usage: The mediating roles of internal and external self-efficacy

Since the underutilization of technology often prevents organizations from reaping expected benefits from IT investments, an increasing body of literature studies how to elicit value-added, post-adoptive IT use behaviors. Such behaviors include extended and innovative feature use, both of which are exploratory in nature and can lead to improved work performance. Since these exploratory behaviors can be risky, research has directed attention to trust in technology as an antecedent to post-adoptive IT use. In parallel, research has examined how computer self-efficacy relates to post-adoptive IT use. While such research has found that both trust and efficacy can lead to value-added IT use and that they might do so interdependently, scant research has examined the interplay between these antecedents to post-adoptive IT use. Drawing on the Model of Proactive Work Behavior with a focus on its predictions about trust and efficacy, we develop a research model that integrates trust in technology and computer self-efficacy in the post-adoption context. Our model suggests that the two concepts are interdependent such that trust-related impacts on post-adoptive use behaviors unfold via computer-related self-efficacy beliefs. Contemporary tests of mediation on data from more than 350 respondents provided support for our model. Hence, our findings begin to open the black box by which trust-related impacts on post-adoptive behaviors unfold, revealing computer self-efficacy as an important mediating factor. In doing so, this study furthers understanding of how, and why, trust matters in post-adoptive usage, enabling strategic change management by elucidating the “fit” between technological characteristics and post-adoptive usage.     

Investigating critical success factors in online learning environments in higher education systems in the Caribbean*

ABSTRACT

Online learning has grown as a key method in education management over the last couple of decades. Studies have shown that significant investments in this technology are being made by universities, yet the full benefits expected have not been realized due to issues and challenges experienced by stakeholders such as learners and instructors in adopting and effectively using e-learning. This is especially true in developing economies where they may be attempting online delivery modes for the first time. In this study, we explore the question “What are the factors that influence university students’ adoption and use of an e-learning system in the context of the English-speaking Caribbean?” using an extended technology acceptance model framework. Partial least squares analysis was used to test the derived research model and found that critical success factors influencing students’ perception and use in online learning settings, particularly those within a developing economy conditions, include supportive cultural practices, access to computers, system or online environment availability, computer and online learning self-efficacy, user perception of usefulness and ease of use. These results have significant implications for university executives and policy-makers as they consider adopting online learning delivery modalities for users.     

Preliminary studies on the development of a decision support system for evaluating engineering and scientific software

The selection of an engineering and scientific software (ESS) system is a complicated process. The overall user satisfaction derived from a system depends on many variables. This study analyzes the influence of ESS predictor variables on overall satisfaction as determined by multiple regression. This study confirms the theories that suggest that ESS ease of operation, computer reliability and technical support are the major determinants of overal computer user satisfaction. The factors identified were used for the design of an ESS Decision Support System.     

Studying users' computer security behavior: A health belief perspective

The damage due to computer security incidents is motivating organizations to adopt protective mechanisms. While technological controls are necessary, computer security also depends on individual's security behavior. It is thus important to investigate what influences a user to practice computer security. This study uses the Health Belief Model, adapted from the healthcare literature, to study users' computer security behavior. The model was validated using survey data from 134 employees. Results show that perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, and self-efficacy are determinants of email related security behavior. Perceived severity moderates the effects of perceived benefits, general security orientation, cues to action, and self-efficacy on security behavior.     

The collaborative production of computer commands in command and control

The division of labour, in its turn, implies interaction; for it consists not in the sheer difference of one man's kind of work from that another, but in the fact that the different tasks and accomplishments are parts of a whole to whose product all, in some degree, contribute. And wholes, in the human social realm as in the rest of the biological and in the physical realm, have their essence in interaction. Work as social interaction is the central theme of sociological and social psychological study of work.Hughes (1958)In an interaction with a computer the user receives information that is output by the computer, and responds by providing input to the computer — the user's output becomes the computer's input and vice versa.Dix, Finlay, Abowd and Beale (1993, p. 11)In this paper, we examine the details of the use of a computer system in situ. Drawing from recent developments in the social sciences, we adopt an analytic orientation that is distinctive from much current work in human–computer interaction and cognitive engineering. Rather than focusing on a circumscribed activity of an individual at a computer system, we explore how the production of computer-based activities is sensitive to the ongoing work and interaction of the participants in the setting. The study utilizes materials including fieldwork and audio-visual recordings to explore how one particular technology is used, a system for automatically controlling trains on an urban transportation system. We focus on the “uses” of this system, a fairly conventional command-and-control system, in the Control Room, and examine how the technology is immersed within the action and interaction of the participants. In particular, we explore how the entry of commands into the system by one controller is coordinated with the conduct of colleagues, and how their conduct is inextricably embedded in their colleague's use of the system. It also reveals how the activities of controllers are managed from moment to moment, so that a division of labour emerges through the course of their interaction. Although in drawing upon naturalistic materials, this study contributes to the growing corpus of “workplace studies” within the field of computer-supported cooperative work, by examining the details of computer-based activities it continues the tradition within human-computer interaction of being concerned with the detailed use of technologies. Indeed, the emerging distinction between the two fields, one considered as focusing on matters associated with the individual “user”, and the other on the “group”, may be false.     

Acceptance of Assistive Technology by Special Education Teachers: A Structural Equation Model Approach

To investigate the acceptance of assistive technology (AT) by special education teachers, the present study developed and tested hypothesized relationships among key determinants of AT acceptance such as the facilitating condition, perceived ease of use, computer self-efficacy, result demonstrability, perceived usefulness, and behavioral intention. Results from analysis of data collected from a number of special education teachers in schools for the visually and/or auditory impaired confirmed the effects hypothesized in our conceptual model of AT acceptance. In particular, perceived usefulness was a dominant factor affecting AT usage. Facilitating condition was strongly related to perceived ease of use, whereas perceived ease of use had a significant effect on computer self-efficacy. This study also found the importance of result demonstrability factor, which had significant effects on both computer self-efficacy and perceived usefulness. This study expanded and enriched a traditional technology acceptance model by further investigating determinants associated with the acceptance of AT by special education teachers for the blind and/or the deaf. In addition, the results of the present study should provide some insights into the understanding of AT acceptance and the decisions of AT utilization, as well as its distribution and training.     

Customers’ perceptions and intention to adopt Internet banking: the moderation effect of computer self-efficacy

In the past, the conventional concentration of Internet banking (IB) research has been on technology development, but this is now shifting to user-focused research. It has been suggested that potential users of IB services in Malaysia may not adopt the system even if they are available, due to their perceptions of this application and their level of confidence in using it to solve their banking needs. This study therefore employs the extended technology acceptance model as the theoretical framework for assessing the influences of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived reliability, and computer self-efficacy on IB adoption in Malaysia. This study scrutinizes the moderation effect of computer self-efficacy on perceptions–intention relationships. Based on data from a sample of 133 Internet-using bank customers collected through a field survey, it was found that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were strong determinants of behavioral intention to adopt IB, while perceived reliability has no direct relationship with intention. Computer self-efficacy significantly moderates the relationship of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use with intention.     

Internet anxiety: An empirical study of the effects of personality,beliefs, and social support

We examined sources of Internet anxiety; specifically modeling the ties from broad dispositional traits (computer anxiety, computer self-efficacy, and personal innovativeness with IT), beliefs about the work environment (about the adequacy of resources and trust in technology), and two forms of social support for IT (leader and peer support) to individuals’ anxiety about using Internet applications. We tested our model using respondents who participated in virtual teams during a 16-week period. Our findings suggested that Internet anxiety was affected both by the users’ personality and by beliefs that can be influenced by providing adequate resources to support the technology, encourage trust in technology, and working to assure users that leaders and peers are supportive of their using the technology. Our findings suggest that by providing appropriate resources and fostering a supportive environment, leaders could reduce Internet anxiety and thus influence the use of technology in the workplace in ways that benefit organizations.     

Organizational and knowledge management related antecedents of knowledge use: the moderating effect of ambiguity tolerance

To leverage their knowledge resources, many organizations deploy knowledge management systems (KMS), which contain at their core a knowledge repository. Successful use of the knowledge/repository depends largely on knowledge workers who must contribute to the knowledge base as well as use those knowledge objects. We develop and validate an empirical model that explains mechanisms required to reduce knowledge gaps in a firm or business unit, through knowledge contribution and use or reuse. Using the theory of planned behavior and its derivative the technology acceptance model, we find that a feature rich user friendly KMS combined with extrinsic rewards (or incentives) and knowledge self-efficacy are critical to KM success. Tolerance of ambiguity (a personal trait) is a key influence in the causal relationship between incentives and knowledge gaps as well as knowledge self-efficacy and knowledge gaps. The main findings of this study are (1) for ambiguity intolerant individuals, incentives and self-efficacy are as important as the KMS as motivators for knowledge sharing and use, (2) for this group, it is necessary to stress the importance of KM as a means of social persuasion in building knowledge self-efficacy, (3) for the ambiguity tolerant, incentives are not required, and self efficacy is self-determined i.e., KM champions are not required to highlight the importance of KM; in fact the technology (KMS) is all important, a finding that negates conventional wisdom that technology is merely an enabler. In summary, a one-size fits all mindset is not effective, a firm must carefully consider the ambiguity tolerance levels of employees before forging ahead with KM efforts. This becomes all the more important to practitioners because of the recently highlighted differences in ambiguity tolerance between “Millennials” and” Generation Xers”. In addition to theory testing in KM, this research also informs KM practice.     

A model of organizational employees’ e-learning systems acceptance

This study examines the factors that influence employees’ adoption and use of e-learning systems and tests the applicability of the technology acceptance model (TAM) in the organizational context. We examined the relationship of employees’ perceptions of their behavioral intention to use e-learning systems in terms of four determinants (individual, organizational, task characteristics, and subjective norm), to further explore the effects of management and organizational support on the subjective norm. Data were 357 valid questionnaires from four industries in Taiwan. The findings indicate that organizational support and management support significantly affected perceived usefulness and intention to use. Individuals’ experience with computers and computer self-efficacy had significantly positive effects on perceived ease of use. Task equivocality significantly influenced perceived usefulness. Organizational and management supports significantly impacted the subjective norm, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and intention to use. Additionally, the results suggest that external variables that affect perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and intention to use, need to be considered as important factors in the process of designing, implementing, and operating e-learning systems. The results provided a more comprehensive insight of individual, organizational, and task characteristics in predicting e-learning acceptance behavior in the organizational contexts, rarely tested in previous studies. By considering these identified factors, practitioners can take corresponding measures to predict or promote organizational employees’ e-learning systems acceptance more effectively and efficiently. Furthermore, by explaining employees’ acceptance behavior, the findings of this research help to develop more user-friendly e-learning systems and provide insight into the best way to promote e-learning systems for employees.     

Computer anxiety and anger: the impact of computer use, computer experience, and self-efficacy beliefs

Past research has demonstrated that the level of computer experience users have is the most valuable predictor in whether or not they will suffer computer anxiety symptoms, but this was not the case in the present study. No research was found which examined the correlates of computer anger symptoms. In the current study, the relationship between the computer use (frequency and duration), computer experience, and self-efficacy beliefs of users were analyzed as predictors for computer anxiety and anger symptoms. Questionnaire data from a sample of 242 university students were analyzed. The results indicated that computer self-efficacy beliefs, not computer experience or use, had the largest significant relationship with both computer anxiety, and anger. It is suggested that self-efficacy beliefs be increased so that users may experience lower levels of anxiety and anger. These findings are contrary to the trend of training computer users in specific computer domains. As computer anxiety and anger are negative psychological “states”, an immediate method to deal with these negative emotions should be developed. One possibility that is explored is the application of computer-based therapy that can be used while a user is experiencing negative emotional symptoms.