A Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modelling on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology in Higher Education

Abstract

With technology advancements in society, many theories and models evolved for explaining the technology acceptance of people in different contexts, especially in education. This study’s main objective is to confirm the factors influencing the actual use behaviour of technology in the higher education sector, based on the framework of the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). This objective was executed by means of the modern statistical technique, meta-analytic structural equation modelling (MASEM). This study synthesized 44 samples from 38 quantitative studies of UTAUT constructs, covering 16550 participants in higher education institutions. The result confirms the validity of the UTAUT model, except the direct effect of facilitating conditions on use behaviour. Therefore, performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and facilitating conditions are the significant positive predictors of the teachers and students’ behavioural intention to use the technology. The behavioural intention can also significantly predict the actual technology use behaviour of teachers and students. Moreover, the resulted model can explain the higher variance of the technology use behaviour among student population than the teacher population. It is anticipated that this study’s findings can add the strong evidence of the validity and usefulness of the UTAUT model to the technology acceptance literature. Moreover, the practitioners with the help of this research’s findings can guide the future integration of technology in higher education effectively.

Keywords

• behavioural intention
• technology use behaviour
• utaut
• meta-analysis
• structural equation modelling