Rethinking determinants of primary school teachers’ technology acceptance during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic forced teachers to suddenly change their teaching mode from face-to-face to emergency remote teaching creating the biggest disruption in the history of education. Despite facing significant challenges such as a lack of proper information technology training, teaching unprepared students, and infrastructural barriers, there is a gap in research on primary school teachers’ readiness to integrate technology. This study aims to address this gap by utilizing the technology acceptance model to explore the relationships between primary school teachers’ computer self-efficacy beliefs, attitudes, and intentions to incorporate computer-based technology during times of disruption. Participants were N = 144 Greek, primary school teachers, who taught in virtual settings during the pandemic. Findings from structural equation modeling showed that self-efficacy beliefs, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness are strong predictors of teachers’ attitudes towards computer use. The study adds to the scarce literature on the crucial role of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs as drivers of their intention to use technology during emergency remote teaching. Additionally, it highlights the need to consider the unique circumstances in which technology is used and provides insights that can inform the design of effective interventions and policies

Determinants of user adoption of egovernment services: the case of Greek local government

Various theories and models exist on new technology and eGovernment adoption and explain the phenomenon. eGovernment acceptance though depends on various factors that differentiate among different groups, particularly regarding expectations, cultural variations, the level of use and interaction, commitment to the eGovernment initiatives. Furthermore, in Greece, there are third parties (Citizen Service Centres-CSCs) that operate and play a significant role in the eGovernment context. Nevertheless, their roles in eGovernment acceptance have to be investigated, in addition to other factors. Hence, further research is needed. The ultimate aim of this Research Project is to contribute to the understanding of the user’s intention drivers or barriers for e-services usage at the local government level that has not been sufficiently explored. It succeeds it, by extending the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) model and proposing a validation research framework. The enhanced model incorporates ‘trust in the Internet’ and ‘trust in the government’ and the roles of CSCs in the Greek eGovernment, by using ‘Habit of going to CSCs’ and ‘Trust in the CSCs’ factors. Τhe model is empirically tested, using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The data (843 participants) came from two cities’ citizens, in Greece. First, the model is being refined by conducting exploratory factor analysis, followed by confirmatory factor analysis and finally the hypothesised structural model is assessed. Ten out of the fifteen hypotheses (relationships and interrelationships among the factors) were confirmed. The findings revealed ‘trust in the Internet’, ‘trust in the government’, and ‘performance expectancy’ to be the primary drivers of behavioural intention to use e-services. Also ‘habit of going to CSCs’ is negatively related to behavioural intention to use e-services. Findings contribute to theory by understanding the drivers of eGovernment adoption in Greece. At the practical level, the research provides guidelines and recommendations that will help eGovernment policy decision makers and web designers in better planning and implementing eGovernment policies and strategies to increase e-services take-up. Furthermore, the questionnaire will be freely available for government organisations in Greece, along with simple directions and recommendations to assess their initiatives

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Tertiary Educators' Awareness of and Readiness to use Virtual Reality (VR) in Remote Online Learning

COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the conventional education landscape to online remote learning. However, this transition has brought about certain challenges such as low levels of student engagement and motivation, which raises the question of whether students are actually learning. Using Virtual Reality (VR) in teaching and learning (T&L) could increase engagement as it provides interactive experience that necessitates students’ online presence. Literature shows students are aware of VR benefits, yet not many tertiary educators are using VR. Thus, this study aims to investigate Malaysian tertiary educators’ awareness of VR and readiness to explore its potential in remote online T&L through a questionnaire survey adapted from previous studies that applied the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as their theoretical framework. Of 26 respondents, only 4 had VR experience in the classroom. While others lacked VR experience, their perceptions were positive, and they were aware of the challenges of using VR. It can be concluded these challenges are partly the reasons why VR is under-utilised. The findings implicate the need to train and familiarise tertiary educators in the use of VR for the continuous intention to use VR. It is believed that when more educators have more intimate knowledge of VR, the more students will benefit regardless if the classes are remote online or otherwise

Proposed model for investigating the level of the users’ acceptance of e-government services

The current paper aims to propose a framework for investigating the level of acceptance of the users for e-government services. The proposed model consists of two main independent variables. The first factor is the perceived usefulness with two-constructs, namely: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. The second independent variable is trust, which has three sub-constructs: perceived risk, perceived privacy and perceived security. The proposed model hypothesizes that these variables have a positive effect on the users’ acceptance for e-government services. The proposed model also hypothesizes that knowledge technology has a positive effect on the relationship between the independent and dependent variables. This model could help to understand the level of acceptance of the users for e-government services, especially that it has focused on both positive and negative factors that might influence the users’ acceptance of e-government services

Exploring Post-Adoption Behavior of the UPI users with Cognitive and Affective Factors

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has invested a sizable amount of money in the country's massive payment infrastructure in an effort to enhance the user experience. However, in order for investments to be profitable, NPCI must guarantee the ongoing use of technological solutions and post-adoptive behaviors like continuance and recommendation intention. The impact of cognitive factors (i.e. Performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influences, facilitating conditions; personal innovativeness) and affective factors (such as satisfaction) on conative factors (such as continuation and recommendation intention) in the perspective of UPI applications (apps) was investigated using the UTAUT model. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling when applied on 651 users (PLS-SEM) showed that satisfaction had a direct impact on continuation intentions, which in turn had an impact on recommendations intentions. It was discovered that all cognitive factors, including performance expectations, effort expectations, and facilitating conditions, have an impact on satisfaction. According to the study, adding a significant individual difference variable—personal innovativeness with regard to information technology—would aid in our understanding of the role that these factors play in the development of continuous intention. It further examines the influence of trust and security, and the pace of innovation on continued intentions. Through the mediating function  of user satisfaction, it also looked at the impact of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating variable, and personal innovativeness on the continuance intentions of the UPI system. All factors have been shown to be significant. Future researchers will find it extremely helpful that the study used a validated instrument to better understand user adherence and referral intentions. Therefore, this study adds to the limited body of knowledge in the payment industry literature by examining how users perceive UPI apps and post-adoption behaviors

The Extended Information Systems Success Measurement Model: e-Learning Perspective

This study investigated the crucial factors for measuring the success of the information system used in the e-learning process, considering the transformations in the work environment. This study was motivated by the changes caused by COVID-19 witnessed after the shift to fully online learning environments supported by e-learning systems, i.e., learning emphasized with information systems. Empirical research was conducted on a sample comprising teaching staff from two European universities: the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Sciences in Serbia and the Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco in Portugal. By synthesizing knowledge from review of the prior literature, supported by the findings of this study, the authors propose an Extended Information System Success Measurement Model—EISSMM. EISSMM underlines the importance of workforce agility, which includes the factors of proactivity, adaptability, and resistance to change, in the information system performance measurement model. The results of our research provide more extensive evidence and findings for scholars and practitioners that could support measuring information system success primarily in e-learning and other various contextual settings, highlighting the importance of people’s responses to work environment changes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A meta-analysis of existing research on citizen adoption of e-government

YesThe purpose of this paper is to perform a weight-analysis and to undertake a meta-analysis of findings reported in published research on the adoption and diffusion of e-government. Usable data relating to e-government adoption research were collected from 103 empirical studies. Of those 103 articles, only 63 used a range of different constructs with appropriate correlation values required for performing a weight- and meta-analysis. Diagrammatic representation has been presented using significant as well as non-significant relationships from all 103 publications. A broader analysis of research on adoption and diffusion of e-government also reflects that although a large number of theories and theoretical constructs were borrowed from the reference disciplines, their utilization by e-government researchers appears to be largely random in approach. This paper also acknowledges the theoretical contribution, the limitations of this study, and suggests further research directions for the continued work