The Effects of Individual-level Culture and Demographic Characteristics on E-learning Acceptance ...

333 Pages·2013·5.1 MB·English

by  Bachar Alrouh

The Effects of Individual-level Culture and
Demographic Characteristics on E-learning
Acceptance in Lebanon and England: A
Structural Equation Modeling Approach

A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
By
Ali Tarhini
Department of Information Systems and Computing,
Brunel University

July 2013
ABSTRACT
Due to the rapid growth of Internet technology, universities and higher
educational institutions around the world are investing heavily in web-based
learning systems to support their traditional teaching and to improve their
students’ learning experience and performance. However, the success of an e-
learning system depends on the understanding of certain antecedent factors that
influence the students’ acceptance and usage of such e-learning systems. Previous
research indicates that technology acceptance models and theories may not be
applicable to all cultures as most of them have been developed in the context of
developed countries and particularly in the U.S. So far little research has
investigated the important role that social, cultural, organizational and individual
factors may play in the use and adoption of the e-learning systems in the context
of developing countries and more specifically there is almost absence of this type
of research in Lebanon.
This study aims to fill this gap by developing and testing an amalgamated
conceptual framework based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and other
models from social psychology, such as Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of
Technology (UTAUT) and TAM2 that captures the salient factors influencing the
user adoption and acceptance of web-based learning systems. This framework has
been applied to the study of higher educational institutions in the context of
developing as well as developed countries (e.g. Lebanon and UK). Additionally,
the framework investigates the moderating effect of Hofstede’s four cultural
dimensions at the individual level and a set of individual differences on the key
determinants that affect the behavioural intention to use e-learning.
A total of 1197 questionnaires were received from students who were using web-
based learning systems at higher educational institutions in Lebanon and the UK
with opposite scores on cultural dimensions. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
was used to perform reliability and validity checks, and Structural Equation
Modeling (SEM) in conjunction with multi-group analysis method was used to
test the hypothesized conceptual model.
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As hypothesized, the findings of this study revealed that perceived usefulness
(PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), subjective norms (SN), perceived quality of
work Life (QWL), self-efficacy (SE) and facilitating conditions (FC) to be
significant determinants of behavioural intentions and usage of e-learning system
for the Lebanese and British students. QWL; the newly added variable; was found
the most important factor in explaining the causal process in the model for both
samples. Our findings proved that there are differences between Lebanese and
British students in terms of PEOU, SE, SN, QWL, FC and AU; however no
differences were detected in terms of PU and BI. The results of the MGA show
that cultural dimensions as well as demographic factors had a partially moderated
effect on user acceptance of e-learning. Overall, the proposed model achieves
acceptable fit and explains for 68% of the British sample and 57% of the
Lebanese sample of its variance which is higher than that of the original TAM.
Our findings suggest that individual, social, cultural and organisational factors are
important to consider in explaining students’ behavioural intention and usage of e-
learning environments. The findings of this research contribute to the literature by
validating and supporting the applicability of our extended TAM in the Lebanese
and British contexts and provide several prominent implications to both theory
and practice on the individual, organizational and societal levels.
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DEDICATION
This doctoral research effort would not have been completed without the only
Grace of Al-Mighty Allah (swt), is dedicated to the memory of my beloved father
Hussein Ahmad Tarhini (May your soul rest in heaven) who inoculated me in
discipline, perseverance and strength that forever will be part of my life.
This research is also dedicated to my lovely mum, my five fabulous sisters, my
precious nephews and nieces, and my parents-in-laws who always believed in me
and to whom I am greatly indebted. Without your support and constant
encouragement this would not have been possible.
I am particularly indebted to my beautiful wife who makes my life happy and
complete. Takwa, you are my source of inspiration, I thank you for always
reminding me of what life is always about. I owe you so much, I promise to make
up the long time we spent away from each other. My work is finally finished and
thanks to Alla (swt) it’s time to be together forever.
Thank you all for giving me your moral support and unconditional love; you were
my motivation and constant inspiration during all the process of my PhD and in
my most difficult times. I really appreciate you, even though the value of my
appreciation cannot compare with everything you have done for me. Finally, I
made it.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise be to Allah,
the Creator and Master of the Universe.
The completion of this research has been assisted by a generous help of many
people of whom I owe a great deal of thanks and appreciation.
First and foremost, my sincere gratitude and deepest thanks go to my supervisor
professor Xiaohui Liu for his patience, sage advice, invaluable guidance, and
continuous support and encouragement at every stage of this dissertation. It is a
complete pleasure to work under your auspicious supervision. Thank you for
always being there for me at time of need.
Equally, I wish to express my appreciation to my second supervisor Dr. Kate
Hone for her constructive feedback, generous time, kind support, and invaluable
advice through this research and the publications associated with it. Thank you
Kate for making my learning experience became less stressful and even more
fascinating!!
My heartfelt thanks and greatest gratitude go to Mahir Arzoky who spent his
valuable time proofreading the thesis. Great thanks go also to Ms Ela Heaney
(PhD Administrator) for her effective administrative assistance, for which I am
especially thankful.
I also wish to express my appreciation to my colleagues, for interesting
discussions and for keeping the office fun and exciting to work in: Valaria, Neda,
Fadra, Cici, Mohsina, Djibril, Stefio, Liang and Miqing.
I am sincerely thankful to my friends and housemates. Their company and
friendship have made the last four years a memorable period of my life. A special
mention goes to Hadi, Bassel, Ghaytih, Bachar, Mahir, Salah, Saeed AbouTrab,
Ghorbani, Mike, Chido and Nalin.
Last but not the least; I am indebted to the ‘Altajir Trust’ for funding my PhD.
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DECLARATION
The following papers have been published (or submitted for publication) as a
direct result of the research discussed in this thesis:
Tarhini, A., Hone, K., and Liu, X. (2013), User Acceptance Towards Web-based
Learning Systems: Investigating the role of Social, Organizational and Individual
factors in European Higher Education. Procedia Computer Science 17, 189-197
Tarhini, A., Hone, K., and Liu, X. (2013), “Factors Affecting Students’
Acceptance of E-learning Environments in Developing Countries: A Structural
Equation Modelling Approach”, Proceedings of the 6th International Business and
Social Sciences Research Conference, Dubai, UAE, 03-04 January 2013
Tarhini, A., Hone, K., and Liu, X. (2013), Factors Affecting Students’
Acceptance of E-learning Environments in Developing Countries: A Structural
Equation Modelling Approach, (Revised version of the Proceedings of 6th
International Business and Social Sciences Research Conference), International
Journal of Information and Education Technology Vol 13. no. 1, pp. 54-2013
Tarhini, A., Hone, K., and Liu, X. (2013), Extending TAM to Empirically
Investigate the Students’ Behavioural Intention to Use E-Learning in Developing
Countries, Science and Information Conference (IEEE), United Kingdom, 07-09
Oct 2013
Tarhini, A., Hone, K., and Liu, X. (2013), The Effects of Individual-level Culture
on E-learning Acceptance, European Journal of Information Systems (under
review)
Tarhini, A., Hone, K., and Liu, X. (2013), A cross-cultural examination of the
impact of social, organizational and individual factors on Technology Acceptance
between British and Lebanese university students, British Journal of Educational
Technology (under review)
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Tarhini, A., Hone, K., and Liu, X. (2013), The Effects of Individual Differences
on e-learning users’ behaviour in Developing Countries: A Structural Equation
Model, Computers & Education (under review)
Tarhini, A., Hone, K., and Liu, X. (2013), Measuring the moderating effect of
gender and age on e-learning acceptance in England: A structural Equation
Modelling Approach of an extended Technology Acceptance Model, Australasian
Journal of Educational Technology (under review)
Papers Presented (Not Published)
Tarhini, A., Liu, X. “Understanding the Behaviour of Students and Lecturers in
web-based learning environments”, Doctoral Consortium, May, British Computer
Society (BCS), London, (2009)
Tarhini, A., Liu, X. “E-learning as innovation: The change of the face of
Education!!”, 1st NewRoute PhD Conference, Brunei Gallery London, (2009)
“Is e-Learning simply a technological solution or a process of Social, Behavioural,
Individual and Cultural factors?”, 3rd NewRoute PhD Conference, Brunei Gallery
London, (2011)
Posters:
Tarhini, A., Liu, X. (2011, March). “To what extent How Cultural Differences
Affects Learners’ perceptions Towards Using E-learning Tools at the UK
universities?” Poster presented at the Research Student Poster Conference, Brunel
University, UK

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ABBREVIATIONS
AGFI Adjusted Goodness-of-Fit Index
AMOS Analysis of Moment Structures
AVE Average Variance Extracted
ASV Average Shared Squared Variance
AU Actual usage
BI Behavioural intention
CFA Confirmatory Factor Analysis
CFI Comparative Fit Index
CMS Course management System
CR Composite reliability
Df Degree of Freedom
DTPB Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour
D² Mahalanobis Distance
EFA Exploratory Factor Analysis
e-learning electronic learning
FC Facilitating conditions
GFI Goodness-of-Fit Index
HEIs Higher Education Institutions
HCI Human Computer Interaction
ICT Information and Communication Technology
IDT Innovations Diffusion Theory
IFI Incremental Fit Index
IS Information Systems
IC Individualism/collectivism
IT Information Technology
KMO Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin
LMSs Learning management system
MI Modification Index
MF Masculinity/femininity
MSV Maximum Shared Squared Varianec
NNFI Non-Normed Fit Index
NFI Normed Fit Index
PBC Perceived Behaviour Control
PLS Partial least squares
PEOU Perceived ease of use
PD Power distance
PU Perceived usefulness
R2 Coefficient of Determination
RMSEA Root Mean Square Error of Approximation
QWL Quality of work life
SN Subjective norm
SD Standard Deviation
SE Self-efficacy
SEM Structure Equation Modeling
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SRMR Standard Root Mean Square Residual
SCT Social Cognitive Theory
SMC Squared Multiple Correlations
SPSS Statistical Package for Social Science
TAM Technology Acceptance Model
TPB Theory of Planned Behaviour
TRA Theory of Reasoned Action
TLI Tucker-Lewis Index
UK United Kingdom
UTAUT Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology
UA Uncertainty avoidance
VIF Variance Inflation Factor
WebCT Web Course Tools
WWW World Wide Web
X2 Chi Square
X2/df Normed Chi-Square

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................... 1
1.1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................... 1
1.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH PROBLEM ......................... 1
1.3 RESEARCH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ........................................................... 6
1.4 RESEARCH SCOPE..................................................................................... 8
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ................................................................... 9
1.6 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY ............................................................. 10
1.7 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ............................................... 12
1.8 CONTEXT OF THE RESEARCH .................................................................. 14
1.9 DISSERTATION OUTLINE ........................................................................ 15
1.10 SUMMARY .............................................................................................. 17
Chapter 2: E-learning, Technology Acceptance & Cultural Models ............. 18
2.1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................... 18
2.2 E-LEARNING ........................................................................................... 18
2.2.1 Advantages of Web-based learning ...................................................... 19
2.2.2 Disadvantages of Web-based learning................................................. 20
2.2.3 Factors Affecting E-learning Acceptance ............................................ 21
2.3 TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE THEORIES AND MODELS ............................ 21
2.3.1 Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DOI) ................................................. 22
2.3.2 Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) ............................................................ 24
2.3.3 Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)........................................................ 24
2.3.4 Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB).................................................... 26
2.3.5 Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) ........................... 28
2.3.6 Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) ................................................. 30
2.3.7 Revised Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2) ................................. 33
2.3.8 Augmented version of TAM (A-TAM) .................................................. 35
2.3.9 Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT)........ 36
2.3.10 Comparison of Models ....................................................................... 38
2.3.10.1 TAM and TRA………………………………….……....... ....37
2.3.10.2 TAM, TPB and DTPB………………………..………… ….38
2.3.10.3 UTAUT and other models …………….……………. .. 39
2.4 CULTURE ................................................................................................ 40
2.4.1 Definition of Culture ............................................................................ 40
2.4.2 Cultural Models ................................................................................... 41
2.4.3 Schwartz’s Cultural Model .................................................................. 41
2.4.4 Hall’s Cultural Model .......................................................................... 42
2.4.5 Hofstede’s cultural model .................................................................... 43
2.4.6 Cultural dimensions at the Country vs. Individual level ...................... 46
2.5 SUMMARY .............................................................................................. 47
Chapter 3: Theoretical basis and Conceptual Framework ............................. 49
3.1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................... 49
3.2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ................................................................... 50
3.3 DIRECT DETERMINANTS ......................................................................... 52
3.3.1 Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU) ........................................................... 52
3.3.2 Perceived Usefulness (PU) .................................................................. 53
3.3.3 Subjective Norm (SN) ........................................................................... 54
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