Educational webcasts' acceptance: Empirical examination and the role of experience
Authors: Giannakos Michail N. , Vlamos Panayiotis 
Published: March 2012

Educational webcasts have enhanced the value of training procedures in institutions and business organizations. In this study, variables from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, Social Cognitive Theory and Theory of Planed Behavior were chosen as important predictors of e‐Learning tools acceptance. This hybrid framework aims to verify the effect of the selected key variables on webcast acceptance. Moreover, the effect of experience on learners' intention to adopt webcasts is explored, as well as the moderating effect of experience on the relationships between the selected key variables and the intention to adopt webcasts. Responses from 248 webcast‐based learners were used to examine webcasts' adoption and the differences between learners with low and high levels of webcast usage experience. Results confirmed the effects of the key variables and experience on learners' intention to use webcasts and indicated the moderating effect of learners' experience on the relationships between (1) Perceived Behavioral Control and Behavioral Intention and (2) Social Norm and Behavioral Intention. The overall outcomes are expected to contribute to theoretical development and promote the acceptance of educational webcasts.

Practitioner Notes

What is already known about this topic?

Effort Expectancy, Performance Expectancy, Social Norm, Computer Self‐Efficacy and Perceived Behavioral Control have been successfully applied to predict the acceptance of several e‐Learning tools.

Studies have shown that learners' prior experience has an impact on their intention to adopt some e‐Learning tools (eg, learning websites).

Empirical examinations have been conducted for several e‐Learning tools such as Educational Portals, Moodle and Blackboard.

What this paper adds?

This research verifies that Effort Expectancy, Performance Expectancy, Social Norm, Computer Self‐Efficacy and Perceived Behavioral Control are critical factors for learners' behavioral intentions to use an educational webcast.

This research found that learners' prior experience influences their behavioral intentions to use an educational webcast.

This research found that learners' prior experience in webcasting has a significant moderating effect on the relationships between perceived behavioral control and behavioral intention and between social norm and behavioral intention to use an educational webcast.

Learners with low perceived behavioral control or social norm, who have high experience with webcasting, will have the same behavioral intention with learners with high perceived behavioral control or social norm and low experience. In other words, the effect of social norm and perceived behavioral control on behavioral intention can be eliminated (or enforced) by the effect of experience.

Implications for practice and/or policy

Webcast developers should strive to increase participants' intrinsic motivations such as social norm, and make them feel in a home‐like environment. For example, the interface of the webcast should have some standards for making learners feel experts. Additionally, it should contain information about the traffic of webcast provider and some social characteristics of the learners.

Instructors and higher education institutions should focus on the educational webcasts' usefulness and ease of use because their predictive effect on educational webcast acceptance is higher. Past research has also shown that strategies, such as providing overviews of the tools used in the course, holding hands‐on workshops with the technology (Song, Singleton, Hill & Koh, 2004) and providing an online technical service are effective means of promoting users' perceptions of the ease of use and usefulness.

Instructors may consider different methods to increase the experience with the webcast system. For instance, instructors can treat the use of webcasts as an objective for the learners to achieve learning targets. When learners use webcasts, they increase their experience and perceive that through its use, the outcome of their work could be improved and their intention to use it will noticeably increase.

Overall, this study helps institutions and business organizations to understand the webcasts' take‐up intention rate and, perhaps, call their attention to explore further the reasons why the majority of the learners are neither likely to take up webcasts nor sure about their willingness.