Toward a model for acceptance of MOOCs in higher education: the modified UTAUT model for Saudi Arabia
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Toward a model for acceptance of MOOCs in higher education: the modified UTAUT model for Saudi Arabia Maryam Altalhi 1 Received: 27 May 2020 / Accepted: 27 August 2020/ # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Massive open online courses MOOCs) are a mode of online learning available to students at any place in the world to improve their skills. Their acceptance for academic purposes remains low, and it is desirable to promote their usage among students. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) was enhanced by the inclusion of attitude and computer self-efficacy, factors verified in the literature. The objective of this study was to use a UTAUT model to identify the major factors determining learners’ acceptance of MOOCs in higher education in Saudi Arabia. An online survey was administered to 169 students of Taif University in Saudi Arabia and structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The results show that the proposed model can explain 63.3% of behavioral intention and 66.1% of user behavior of MOOC. The study unexpectedly found that behavioral intention was affected only by attitude. The actual use was affected by behavioral intention, attitude, and facilitating conditions. Attitude was affected by performance expectancy, social influence, and computer self-efficacy. In addition, computer self-efficacy as an external factor has an important effect on performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and attitude. The main finding is that although most studies of technology acceptance exclude attitude, this study found it to have a critical role in verifying the UTAUT model. This study highlights the main factors that affect MOOC intention and its usage for students in higher education. Keywords Distance education . Online learning . Technology acceptance . UTAUT .
Higher education
* Maryam Altalhi [email protected]
1
Management Information System, Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia
Education and Information Technologies
1 Introduction A massive open online course (MOOC) is a type of information system (IS), specifically a learning platform that provides an opportunity to students lacking physical space or time to explore subjects of interest to them (Gao and Yang 2015). There is a demand for MOOCs because university outputs do not match the requirements of the labor market, specifically by failing to keep pace with changes in information technology. Job seekers therefore need additional skills training and up-to-date knowledge, which MOOCs make accessible without barriers and with full flexibility in terms of location and schedule. MOOCs can help university graduates lacking experience or skills that are important in the labor market to access online courses taught by experts and academics (Curley 2013). Thus, prestigious universities around the world have adopted MOOCs; for example, Stanford university provides Coursera and Udacity, and valuable content is delivered by professors from such institutions (Conole 2016). The MOOCs are ava
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