Elsevier

Computers & Education

Volume 51, Issue 2, September 2008, Pages 609-623
Computers & Education

Factors affecting e-collaboration technology use among management students

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2007.06.013Get rights and content

Abstract

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.

Introduction

Technology has proved its value in higher education and in applied areas such as management (Ives & Jarvenpaa, 1996). For example, in Europe digital literacy is emerging as a new key competence required by workers and citizens in the new knowledge society (European Commission, 2005). The integration of IT-supported learning helps workers acquire the necessary skills and knowledge for their job (European Commission, 2005). IT use can also improve the effectiveness of the learning process. Consequently, if the student learns to use technology before starting his/her job, this could be an advantage for both the future professional and the employer. Moreover, the use of the Web as an educational delivery medium (e-learning) provides the students with the opportunity to develop an additional set of communication, technical, teamwork and interpersonal skills that mirror the business environment in which they will work (Kaynama & Keesling, 2000).

Meanwhile, the statistics on e-learning show a considerable use of these tools in recent years. Compared to other European countries, Spain is below the mean but ahead of nations such as Italy or France. The most advanced countries are the UK and Germany (Telefónica, 2004). When looking at universities, only 4.1% of their total budget is used for e-learning based training. Moreover, the majority of universities (50%) use the WebCT e-learning platform in Spain (Barro, 2004).

Universities are combining interactive technology and active ways of learning, which require students to develop or hone their computing skills and to take more responsibility for their own learning. Consequently, the future of IT for learning purposes is bright, especially considering young people’s increased use of IT for, among other purposes, social contacts. Nevertheless, students, contrary to the general idea that they can be considered digital natives (Gaston, 2006, Qureshi, 2006), do not all react positively to IT learning; some prefer the traditional process. Students may react differently to the online learning environment, depending on their own level and attitude (Drennan, Kennedy, & Pisarski, 2005). This is similar to Hu, Clark, and Ma (2003) finding about teachers working in public centres who have shown some resistance towards IT implementation in education. Likewise, Gong, Xu, and Yu (2004) find resistance in some parts of the educational sector to the introduction of IT in education. Previous literature has centred on the concept of computer self-efficacy, defined as the individual’s consciousness of his/her capacity to use computers (Gong et al., 2004), and this concept can be used to explain the intention to use the system. There is also the need to investigate the students’ acceptance of an Internet-based learning medium in order to understand the various drivers influencing acceptance (Lee, Cheung, & Cheng, 2005).

This paper has two main objectives. The first one is to empirically analyse the use of e-collaboration technologies among management students. The second objective is to analyse the variables that effectively impact that use. In particular, the work examines how gender, internet experience, resistance, technology acceptance and computer self-efficacy influence students’ use of these technologies. Furthermore, based on previous published empirical research the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) will be applied with self-efficacy, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as the main variables. The effect of gender will also be considered, as the literature has found that gender positively influences the use of e-collaboration technologies.

The paper is organised as follows. After a literature review, the research model is explained. The research design and data analysis are discussed next. Finally, the discussion and implications, along with some conclusions and limitations conclude the study.

Section snippets

Literature review

Electronic collaboration (e-collaboration) technologies are technologies that support e-collaboration. An operational definition of e-collaboration is collaboration among different individuals using electronic technologies to accomplish a common task (Kock, 2005, Kock and D’Arcy, 2002). These e-collaboration technologies include several Internet-based technologies, such as e-mail, forums, chats, and document repositories. All these will be considered in this research. In a historical review of

Research model and methodology

Based on the previous literature a research model was developed to gain a better explanation of the intention to use IT in the learning/teaching process. This model is based mainly on Gong et al. (2004), and since the sample consists of management students most of the constructs were adapted from Martins and Kellermanns (2004).

Since this model was proposed, more than a hundred papers on TAM have been published. The model has been used for different sample sizes, different users and different

Exploratory results

With regard to the usage of Internet-based e-collaboration technologies, fully 88.0% of students have an e-mail account different from (i.e., in addition to) the account provided to them by the university. Students’ usage of the university-provided e-mail account is clearly low. The results show that 85.8% of the students say they make very little use of their official e-mail address. Internet access from the computer rooms at the university is also not very high. This fact could be explained

Discussion

The research presented in this paper has investigated the use of web-based e-collaboration technologies among management students and the impact of different variables (gender, Internet experience and computer self-efficacy) on this use.

The results suggest that the students have a poor perception about the availability and value of the IT infrastructure at their university. Surprisingly, they express a general negativity towards the incorporation of technology in the curriculum, and there is a

Conclusions

In Spain, public universities are more developed than private universities in using the Web for offering information. The university in which IT implementation is studied here can be taken as a typical example of a normal public university in Spain, and so the results of this analysis can be extrapolated to the general situation.

Contrary to the idea that young people – especially students – are advanced users of Internet-based technologies, as they can be considered digital natives (Gaston, 2006

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