Computers in Human Behavior 34 (2014) 301314

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Computers in Human Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Behavioral intention, use behavior and the acceptance of electronic

learning systems: Differences between higher education
and lifelong learning
ngel F. Agudo-Peregrina, ngel Hernndez-Garca , Flix J. Pascual-Miguel
Universidad Politcnica de Madrid, Departamento de Ingeniera de Organizacin, Administracin de Empresas y Estadstica, Escuela Tcnica Superior de Ingenieros de
Telecomunicacin, Despacho A-126. Av. Complutense, 30, 28040 Madrid, Spain

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Available online 8 November 2013
Keywords:
Educational technology acceptance
Behavioral intention
Use behavior
Self-reported use
TAM3

a b s t r a c t
Widespread implementation of e-learning systems learning management systems, virtual learning
environments across higher education institutions has aroused great interest on the study of e-learning
acceptance. Acceptance studies focus on the predictors of system adoption and use, with behavioral
intention to use the system as a proxy for actual use. This study proposes a TAM3-based model with
the inclusion of two additional variables: personal innovativeness in the domain of information technology and perceived interaction to study the factors inuencing the acceptance of e-learning systems.
Attention is also brought towards the role of behavioral intention, especially in its relation with use
behavior. In order to do so, two different settings were considered: higher education and lifelong learning; data was gathered from a survey administrated to Spanish graduate and lifelong learning students,
and partial least squares analysis was used to test the research model. Results supported TAM relations,
except for the intention-behavior linkage, and unveiled a dual nature of perceived usefulness with one
component related to efciency and performance, and another component related to exibility. The adequacy of applying TAM3-based models in educational contexts and suitability of actual system usage
measures are also discussed.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Acceptance models aim to identify the factors that allow predicting user behavior and explaining the adoption process. Since
the formulation of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Fishbein
& Ajzen, 1975) and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989), the constant search for a better explanation of technology acceptance and its antecedents has led to the development of
models of increasing complexity.
Computer-mediated education, or electronic learning, has not
been exempt from this kind of analysis. But the relatively recent
development of learning management systems and virtual learning
environments has caused a relative gap between acceptance models and empirical studies of educational technology acceptance. As
a result, the different models have gradually been tested in e-learning contexts. Thus, most studies in the last decade were grounded
only on TAM or the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Ajzen,
1991), with very few using more recently developed acceptance
models, such as the Unied Theory of Acceptance and Use of the
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: af.agudo@upm.es (.F. Agudo-Peregrina), angel.hernandez@
upm.es (. Hernndez-Garca), felixjose.pascual@upm.es (F.J. Pascual-Miguel).
0747-5632/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.10.035

Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003)

e.g. Teo (2010), Dueas-Rugnon, Iglesias-Pradas, and Agudo-Peregrina (2012) or TAM2 e.g. Van Raaij and Schepers (2008) ,
and close to none using the third version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM3) (Venkatesh & Bala, 2008).
Two important issues in technology acceptance research are related to the concept of actual use behavior. In the rst place, acceptance models are based on the assumption that behavioral
intention is a valid predictor of actual use behavior; this leads to
many empirical studies just focusing on explaining behavioral
intention as they take the linkage between intention and use
behavior for granted; but recent literature (Bagozzi, 2007) has begun to question the validity of traditional acceptance models, and
mainly the causality of this relation.
The second issue is related to the controversy about how to
actually measure use behavior, as information technologies make
it possible to collect objective usage data but many measurement
instruments used in educational technology acceptance studies
still rely on self-reported system usage. But when acceptance models are used to predict future adoption of a system in pre-implementation stages, objective usage data, and even self-reported
system usage, may not be available; in these cases, it is still possible to explain behavioral intention, and it might be necessary to

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rely on other indirect measures of use behavior such as past

behavior.
In the light of the above mentioned, this study aims to answer
two research questions:
 RQ1. Is TAM3 adequate to explain electronic systems acceptance and use by students?
 RQ2. Is the relation between behavioral intention and use
behavior valid in a TAM3-based framework?
In order to address these two questions, we have designed an
acceptance model based on TAM3, adapted to the characteristics
of e-learning understood as the use of learning management systems and virtual learning environments and applied it in two settings with different contexts and samples, from which we expect to
gain insight about the process of acceptance and use of electronic
learning systems.
The remainder of this document is structured as follows: section two will present a brief note about technology acceptance
models and then focus on presenting the different variables used
in the research model, as well as the relations between them; section three will detail the study methodology, including a description of the two settings, sample and the measurement
instrument used for validation of the research model; section four
will show the results from the empirical analysis, which will be
discussed in section ve; nally, section six will summarize the
main conclusions from this research.
2. Theoretical background and research hypotheses
2.1. Technology acceptance models and determinants of use behavior
As mentioned in the introduction, the last three decades have
seen the emergence of some theoretical frameworks to study technology acceptance and use, starting with TRA and the rest of models stemming from it, such as TAM, TPB or UTAUT. They originate
from the idea that salient beliefs of an individual determine his
attitude towards a stimulus object, which in turn determines his
intention to perform a certain behavior; and that behavioral intention is the ultimate predictor of actual behavior.
In TAM, attitudes and intention to use a given technology are
predicted by perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, offering a simple but effective way to evaluate technology acceptance.
The latest evolution of TAM, TAM3 (Venkatesh & Bala, 2008), focuses on integrating the antecedents of perceived usefulness and
perceived ease of use. But, although TAM3 addresses some of the
issues pointed out by Bagozzi (2007) in technology acceptance research e.g. the inclusion of elements related to emotions in the
model, it has barely been applied to the specic characteristics
of technology-enhanced learning.
2.2. Technology Acceptance Model 3 (TAM3) and antecedents of use
behavior
Since we will build upon the acceptance framework proposed
by TAM3, adapting it to the case of educational technology, and following from the relation between behavioral intention and use
behavior in TAM3, we posit that:
H1a. Behavioral intention to use e-learning systems positively
predicts use of e-learning systems by students.
For this research, TAM3 has been adapted to address the specic
characteristics of educational technology acceptance. Thus, from the
original variables in TAM3, we have discarded three determinants of
perceived usefulness image or self-image, output quality and re-

sult demonstrability and one antecedent of perceived ease of use

objective system usability, but we have included two factors from
e-learning acceptance literature: perceived interaction and personal
innovativeness in the domain of information technology.
Of these, image was omitted because it was considered that
course delivery mode does not affect the status of an individual
and that, in general, learning status is more related to academic records. With regard to output quality and result demonstrability,
there is not yet enough evidence of their inuence on the domain
of e-learning; furthermore, this study is more oriented toward individual acceptance from a pre-adoption perspective than toward
course nal outputs, and therefore it was considered convenient to
exclude them from the study. Finally, system usability is more oriented toward comparison of systems, with an emphasis on efcacy
and efciency, than to individual perceptions of the system; this fact,
together with its objective nature, in contrast to the rest of subjective
parameters of the study, advised against its inclusion in this study.
2.2.1. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
Perceived usefulness was dened by Davis (1989) as the extent
to which a person believes that a system may contribute to improve his work performance. In the educational context it may
be redened as the extent to which a student believes that the elearning system may help to improve his or her academic performance, by facilitating the whole learning process in general and
the completion of learning-related tasks in particular. According
to Umrani-Khan and Iyer (2009), in the case of educational learning
systems, perceived usefulness would additionally include the notion of exibility, or the degree to which the tools and contents
of an e-learning system t the students preferences; this includes
preferred time, location/place and learning style, and favours the
feeling of independence and self-directed learning. Therefore, from
the original formulation of TAM3:
H2a. Perceived usefulness positively predicts behavioral intention
to use e-learning systems by students.
Perceived ease of use was dened by Davis (1989) as the extent
to which a person considers that the use of a system is free of effort. From this broad denition, it follows that perceived ease of
use includes aspects related to ease of access and navigation (Park,
2009; Volery & Lord, 2000) and interface design (Selim, 2005,
2007). In sum, an easy access to the system and browsing, and a
friendly interface will have an inuence on the students perception of complexity of an e-learning system.
TAM posits that perceived ease of use is not only a determinant
of behavioral intention but it also inuences the perceived usefulness (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000) although there is some debate
about this relation, especially in contexts where users have a high
level of expertise or experience in the use of the system (Venkatesh
& Bala, 2008). Thus:
H2b. Perceived ease of use positively predicts behavioral intention
to use e-learning systems by students.
H3a. Perceived ease of use positively predicts perceived usefulness
of e-learning systems by students.
2.2.2. Subjective norm
Subjective norm refers to the social pressure exerted toward a
person by the opinions of other people referents and signicant
others, such as family or friends about whether or not performing
a given behavior. Models derived from the original TAM proposed a
double inuence of subjective norm in behavioral intention, both
directly and indirectly through perceived usefulness (Schepers &
Wetzels, 2007).

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In educational settings, subjective norm focuses not on the social inuence toward decision making but on how the opinions
from peers, family, teachers and educational institution policies
may inuence the students predisposition to the use of e-learning
systems; therefore, we could redene the concept as the extent to
which a student perceives a pressure from members in his or her
environment to use e-learning systems. In this sense, Nanayakkara
and Whiddett (2005) conrmed that inuence from peers was
especially relevant in the decision to adopt e-learning by students.
Nonetheless, some authors are skeptical about the inuence of
subjective norm, since they consider that e-learning may be perceived by students as an individual opportunity, rather than a
group obligation (Dueas-Rugnon, Iglesias-Pradas, & HernndezGarca, 2010; Dueas-Rugnon et al., 2012). From the previous discussion, we posit the following hypotheses:
H2c. Subjective norm positively predicts behavioral intention to
use e-learning systems by students.
H3b. Subjective norm positively predicts perceived usefulness of
e-learning systems by students.
2.2.3. Antecedents of perceived usefulness
Venkatesh and Davis (2000) introduced the concept of job relevance in TAM3 to characterize the correspondence between a system and the job it is used for i.e., the task-technology t. In the
context of this study, we have decided to rename it as relevance
for learning, and it may be dened as the extent to which a student
considers that the use of an e-learning system is suitable for learning and performing learning-related tasks. From a conceptual view,
this construct is related to perceived usefulness, since the capabilities of the system to carry out and successfully fulll the students
learning needs are a prerequisite in order for that system to be
evaluated as useful, and thus:
H3c. Relevance for learning positively predicts perceived usefulness of e-learning systems by students.
Interactions have become an essential part of learning processes
in e-learning (Donnelly, 2010) among all the agents involved
learners, instructors, administrative staff, contents, etc. Learning
management systems allow crossing time and spatial boundaries
and enable synchronous and asynchronous interaction among participants, which is considered one of the greatest advantages of ITsupported distance learning. Therefore, the enhanced level of interaction perceived by a student i.e., the degree to which a student
perceives that the e-learning system enhances his or her communication capabilities to interact with other students and teachers
may contribute to improve perceived usefulness and, as Liu,
Chang Chen, Sun, Wible, and Kuo (2010) conrmed, even to an increase in the intention to use e-learning systems. Therefore, we
formulate the following hypotheses:
H2d. Perceived interaction positively predicts behavioral intention
to use e-learning systems by students.
H3d. Perceived interaction positively predicts perceived usefulness of e-learning systems by students.
2.2.4. Antecedents of perceived ease of use
Computer self-efcacy refers to the extent to which an individual believes that he is able to perform a specic task with the use of
a computer (Compeau & Higgins, 1995). In e-learning, computer
self-efcacy is related to students self-condence in their abilities
to search for information, communicate with others and their skill

303

with the use of computers, and has been considered a critical factor
for adoption of educational technology systems (Mungania & Reio,
2005). Computer self-efcacy has been conrmed as an antecedent
of perceived ease of use e.g. Grandon, Alshare, and Kwun (2005),
Jong and Wang (2009), and therefore:
H4a. Self-efcacy positively predicts perceived ease of use of elearning systems by students.
Venkatesh and Morris (2000) dene computer anxiety as the
degree of apprehension, or even fear, that an individual experiences when using a computer. Students may express these negative feelings caused by their lack of computer skills or because
they feel more comfortable with other learning modalities, which
offer a more traditional way to study and share course materials.
Several studies have conrmed that computer anxiety plays an
important role as an antecedent of perceived ease of use in educational technology acceptance (Hara & Kling, 2000; Jong & Wang,
2009; Marchewka, Liu, & Kostiwa, 2007; Nistor, Ggs, & Lerche,
2013; Piccoli, Ahmad, & Ives, 2001; Smart & Cappel, 2006; Van
Raaij & Schepers, 2008), and hence:
H4b. Computer anxiety negatively predicts perceived ease of use
of e-learning systems by students.
Facilitating conditions, a factor accounting for perception of
external control, is related to the concept of facilitating resources
(Taylor & Todd, 1995), and to the extent to which an individual
considers that he possesses the organizational resources and infrastructure support to use the system (Venkatesh & Bala, 2008). In
fact, lack of a support infrastructure has been pointed out as a decisive barrier for e-learning systems implementation (Engelbrecht,
2005; Selim, 2007).
In his e-Learning Acceptance Model (ELAM), Selim (2006) identies support as a key element, including aspects related to reliability and availability of technical support and online resources.
Other authors have also emphasized the capital role of support
(Abdel-Wahab, 2008; Carlsson, Henningsson, Hrastinski, & Keller,
2008; Jong & Wang, 2009; Nanayakkara & Whiddett, 2005; Umrani-Khan & Iyer, 2009); but besides this role of support, Selim also
included other technology-related elements which facilitate the
learning process, such as availability of classrooms equipped with
adequate computers, network reliability or existence of information repositories and digital libraries.
Although TAM3 only considered the role of facilitating conditions as antecedent of perceived ease of use, UTAUT (Venkatesh
et al., 2003) and UTAUT2 (Venkatesh, Thong, & Xin, 2012) conrmed a direct inuence of facilitating conditions in actual use of
the system. Therefore, we posit that:
H1b. Facilitating conditions positively predict use of e-learning
systems by students.
H4c. Facilitating conditions positively predict perceived ease of
use of e-learning systems by students.
Traditionally, technology acceptance research has been focused on utilitarian systems. Therefore, affective and hedonic factors were often neglected in most empirical studies. But, as
information technology permeated through different activities,
it was deemed necessary to consider the inuence of these affective elements in the adoption of systems which were not intrinsically utilitarian. This is the case of e-learning systems, where it
is accepted that the inclusion of elements of fun favour the learning process and contribute to an increase in the comfort the students experience with the use of the system (Chen, Chen, Lin, &

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Yeh, 2007; Ramrez-Correa, Rondn-Catalua, & Arenas-Gaitn,

2010; Roca & Gagn, 2008; Zhang, Zhao, & Tan, 2008; umak,
Hericko, Punik, & Polancic, 2011). However, it must not be forgotten that the main objective of an e-learning system is not to
provide pleasure or enjoyment, and therefore we will conceptualize the hedonic elements with the term perceived playfulness; in
line with Venkatesh et al. (2003), we will dene perceived
playfulness as the degree in which the use of the e-learning
system is perceived as fun or enjoyable by the student, regardless
of the nal results achieved, and then formulate the following
hypothesis:
H4d. Perceived playfulness positively predict perceived ease of use
of e-learning systems by students.
In their study of virtual learning environments acceptance in
China, Van Raaij and Schepers (2008) included a factor called personal innovativeness towards IT. Personal innovativeness in the
domain of IT (PIIT) was rst conceptualized by Agarwal and Prasad
(1998), and is related to the predisposition of an individual to use
and experiment with new information technologies, regardless of
external opinions (Schillewaert, Ahearneb, Frambachc, & Moenaertd, 2005). Therefore, it reects a tendency towards trying new
innovations, assuming the risks inherent to untested technologies
(Bommer & Jalajas, 1999). Van Raaij and Schepers (2008) conrmed the inuence of this construct on perceived ease of use
but not on perceived usefulness in the context of e-learning, and
therefore we posit that:
H4e. PIIT positively predict perceived ease of use of e-learning
systems by students.

2.2.5. Use behavior and habit

So far, we have proposed a series of variables and relations
which allow us to study electronic learning systems acceptance
and use behaviors, but we have intentionally avoided giving a
characterization of actual use behavior. As it was mentioned in
the introductory section, actual system usage is a controversial
construct in acceptance models because there is no consensus on
how it should be measured see, for example, Burton-Jones and
Straub (2006) or about the causality in its relation with behavioral intention.
In general, the two most common ways to measure actual use
are objective and subjective measures (Straub, Limayem & Karahanna-Evaristo, 1995). Objective measures are generally usage
data extracted from system logs, including time spent in the system, number of logins or total number of interactions with the system; while they may provide accurate usage information, objective
measures require data processing and are not available in preadoption stages. Subjective measures, on the other hand, are more
often gathered via self-reported values about frequency or intensity of use of a system (Turner, Kitchenham, Brereton, Charters, &
Budgen, 2010); of course, this measure of actual system usage is
subject to response bias and is not generally available in pre-adoption stages either. Although both measures tend to be correlated,
the relation between self-reported use and objective measures of
use is not clear (Straub et al., 1995).
As stated before, none of these measures are helpful when the
system is not implemented or the individuals have not had a
hands-on experience with the system yet. Furthermore, it is possible that access to usage log data is not available and the interval of
time between uses of the system is long enough to affect self-reported measures; this is especially true in the case of electronic
learning in higher education, where e-learning courses available
may often be separated by more than six months.

Therefore, there should be some way to obtain a more precise

self-reported measure of actual use behavior in these cases. Triandiss (1977) Theory of Interpersonal Behavior includes a factor
called habits, predicted by past behavior and which, together
with behavioral intention and moderated by facilitating conditions, ultimately determines actual behavior. This variable is related to one subjective measure of system usage identied by
Straub et al. (1995) regarding the self-perception of own usage
by the individual, and it also provides a helpful instrument to compensate for delay effects in the capture of self-reported data.
Following this discussion, if we dene habit as the self-perception of own usage and frequency/intensity of past electronic learning use behavior of an individual, we may hypothesize that:
H1c. Habit positively predicts use of e-learning systems by
students.

2.3. Research model

From the above research hypotheses, the research model for
this study may be graphically depicted as shown in Fig. 1.
3. Method
3.1. Research design and setting
In order to test the proposed research model, two settings were
studied: the rst one was based on a sample of higher education
students of different public universities in the Madrid area from
higher courses i.e. within their last two years before graduation, while the second was based on a sample of people qualifying
for courses from the lifelong learning program of Universidad
Politcnica de Madrid (UPM).
This research design aimed to uncover differences in the acceptance and use behaviors of e-learning systems between two different groups of students from a demographic and even a
motivational perspective and therefore sought for further generalization of results. Data was gathered by means of online questionnaires distributed to respondents via e-mail during two
different periods of time: summer holiday of 2012 for graduate
students and Easter 2013 for lifelong learning students. Questionnaires were the same for both sample groups. The online survey
consisted of two parts: the rst one asked four questions related
to sample characteristics gender and experience with computers,
Internet and electronic learning systems, while the second part
included the different items used to measure the research model
variables, without any reference to specic educational technologies or systems. Since no actual data usage was available for the
group of graduate students, self-reported frequency of use was
chosen to measure use behavior, using habit to compensate for
possible delay effects. In addition to the former, lifelong learning
students identiers were retrieved in order to compare their
self-reported measures about time spent and actual computer-recorded data of use a token paired each questionnaire to the user
IDs in the learning management system (Moodle); individual
names were not retrieved to preserve privacy. Questions in the second part of the questionnaire were distributed randomly by the
survey program into four different blocks in order to reduce method bias.
3.2. Population and sample
The questionnaire was initially distributed to 95 third and
fourth year graduate students from different public universities
in the Madrid area; a total of 77 surveys were answered, with 66

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Fig. 1. Research model.

Table 1
Sample characteristics (Gender).
Gender

Male
Female

Higher education

Lifelong learning

38 (57.6%)
28 (42.4%)

27 (33.3%)
54 (66.7%)

complete and valid responses. Then, it was distributed to 125 students eligible to take part in online courses from UPMs lifelong
learning global offer; 85 surveys were answered, with a total of
81 valid responses. According to Green (1991), sample size was
considered adequate for analysis, with large effect size.
Sample characteristics of the sample is shown in Table 1 (gender) and Table 2 (experience with the use of computers, Internet
and e-learning systems).

measurement instrument for perceived interaction was also

adapted from Paechter et al. (2010) and personal innovativeness
was adapted from Van Raaij and Schepers (2008).
As indicated before, use behavior was measured through selfreported time spent using the system, although log usage data
was also collected during the fth and sixth week of lifelong learning courses halfway in the course. Habit was measured as selfperceived own usage and self-reported past usage of electronic
learning systems.
All items, except for self-reported intensity of use and past use,
were measured in Likert-7 scales, ranging from 1 totally disagree to 7 totally agree. Past use of the system was measured by asking the number of online courses taken in the last
year and self-reported time spent was questioned asking participants how many hours a week, on average, they spent on an online
course. Possible answers were divided into different intervals and
the responses relative to habit and use behavior were later normalized for analysis.

3.3. Variables and instruments

3.4. Procedure
The measurement instrument was developed following the original instrument used by Venkatesh and Bala (2008) for TAM3 constructs, and adapting the items to the context of e-learning
systems. The instrument for self-efcacy was adapted from Park
(2009), facilitating conditions was expanded by including items
from Selim (2007), and indicators related to exibility adapted
from Paechter, Maier, and Macher (2010) were added to the measurement instrument for perceived usefulness. Additionally, the

Once data was gathered, the research model was validated

using a Partial Least Squares (PLS) approach method to test the
structural model, with the help of the software SmartPLS 2.0
(Ringle, Wende, & Will, 2005). PLS allows independence of data
distribution, small sample sizes and no assumptions concerning
measurement scales (Haenlein & Kaplan, 2004), and focuses on
prediction (Hair, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2011). Therefore, it was

Table 2
Sample characteristics.

None
Low (<2 years)
Medium (25 years)
High (>5 years)

Experience with computers

Experience using the Internet

Experience with e-learning systems

Higher education

Lifelong learning

Higher education

Lifelong learning

Higher education

Lifelong learning

3 (4.5%)
3 (4.5%)
60 (90.9%)

3 (3.7%)
78 (96.3%)

1 (1.5%)
4 (6.1%)
61 (92.4%)

1 (1.2%)
5 (6.2%)
75 (92.6%)

5 (7.6%)
27 (40.9%)
18 (27.2%)
16 (24.2%)

5 (6.2%)
14 (17.3%)
30 (37.0%)
32 (39.5%)

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Table 3
Descriptive statistics.
Higher education

Perceived usefulness 1 (PU1)a

Perceived usefulness 2 (PU2)a
Perceived ease of use (PEOU)
Subjective norm (SN)
Relevance for learning (LREL)
Personal innovativeness in the domain of IT (PIIT)
Self-efcacy (SEFF)
Perceived interaction (PI)
Facilitating conditions (FC)
Computer anxiety (ANX)
Perceived playfulness (PP)
Behavioral intention (BI)
a

Lifelong learning

t-Test (two-tailed)

Mean

Std. Err.

Mean

Std. Err.

4.81
5.86
5.05
4.35
4.98
5.09
5.96
5.12
5.06
2.53
4.76
4.89

1.41
1.22
1.24
1.39
1.41
1.51
1.10
1.63
1.35
1.58
1.38
1.58

5.25
6.43
5.64
4.28
5.51
5.62
6.15
5.31
5.58
2.42
4.68
5.59

1.34
0.82
1.04
1.23
1.04
1.28
0.94
1.53
1.16
1.69
1.56
1.35

0.00
0.00
0.00
0.56
0.00
0.00
0.12
0.10
0.01
0.39
0.65
0.00

(n.s.)

(n.s)

(n.s.)
(n.s.)

Perceived usefulness was separated into two variables after item reliability analysis.

considered adequate for the analysis. Finally, a bootstrap

resampling procedure was made in order to assess the stability
of estimates (Chin, Marcolin, & Newsted, 2003).
4. Results
4.1. Measurement model: item reliability, convergent and discriminant
validity
In the rst place, descriptive statistics were calculated for each
construct (see Table 3; as normalized z-values were used for
assessment of habit and system usage, they have not been included
in that table, since they had mean zero and variance equal to one).
From Table 3, mean values were generally higher in the case of
lifelong learning studies, except for subjective norm and computer
anxiety in which the differences were not signicant. This result
goes in line with those found in Table 1, where lifelong learning
studies are in general more experienced in the use of e-learning
systems than higher education students.
Standardized loadings of the latent variable indicators were observed for assessment of item reliability with all the indicators
dened as reective. Indicators with loadings not exceeding the
ideal cut-off level of 0.7 (Nunnally, 1978) were dropped for subsequent analysis. In particular, one item was dropped from the scale
of perceived ease of use (Using e-learning systems does not require a lot of my mental effort), one from PIIT (In general, I am
hesitant to try out new information technologies, reverse-scored),
one from behavioral intention (I intend to use e-learning systems
in the next six months) and three from facilitating conditions (all
of them except for I have the resources necessary to use e-learning systems). Interestingly, in both settings we found very low
loadings for the items related to exibility in the measurement
instrument for perceived usefulness; also, they showed very low
communality with the rest of indicators of the construct but high
communality between them. Therefore, it was decided to separate
the construct into two different constructs, one of them related to
the traditional denition of perceived usefulness (PU1) and the
other accounting for the aspects related to exibility (PU2).
Results from the item reliability assessment are shown in
Tables 4 and 5. A bootstrap resampling procedure was used to test
the stability of the estimates (Chin et al., 2003), with values
corresponding to a signicance level of p < 0.001 in all cases.
To ensure validity at the construct level i.e., convergent
validity, composite reliability and average variance extracted
(AVE) were calculated (see Table 6). Although values of Cronbachs
alpha are also shown for reference, composite reliability coefcient
is preferred instead because it does not assume that all indicators
are equally weighted (Barclay, Higgins, & Thompson, 1995), and
therefore offers a more general measure (Fornell & Larcker,

1981). Values were higher than 0.81 and 0.59, respectively, well
over the acceptable threshold values of 0.7 (Hair, Anderson,
Tatham, & Black, 1998) and 0.5 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Hulland,
1999).
For assessment of discriminant validity a comparison was required between average variance extracted (AVE) and inter-construct correlations. Upon Fornell and Larckers (1981)
recommendation, the square root of AVE should be greater than
bivariate correlations between each construct and the rest of constructs. As shown in Tables 7 and 8, this method allows us to conrm that the different items are measuring their correspondent
construct and not others (Gefen & Straub, 2005), therefore conrming discriminant validity for this analysis. It must be noted, however, that a strong correlation was found between relevance for
learning and behavioral intention in setting 1 higher education
students.
As mentioned earlier in this text, we also calculated the correlation between self-reported time spent using the system calculated in hours per week and activity data from the system log
also in hours per week, and we obtained a signicant but low
correlation between them (Pearsons correlation 0.359, p < 0.001).
4.2. Structural model analysis
Standardized path coefcients and signicance levels were used
to test the research hypothesis (Chin, 1998). The hypotheses test
was based on the research model in Fig. 1, and the results from settings 1 and 2 are shown in Table 9, and Figs. 2 and 3, respectively.
From Table 9, the research model seems to be able to predict
behavioral intention based on perceived usefulness and subjective
norm, but not on perceived ease of use. It also seems to conrm
most of the antecedents of perceived usefulness except for subjective norm, which seems to only have a direct inuence on
behavioral intention to use e-learning systems, with a strong
inuence of relevance for learning. Besides, the results from both
settings are contradictory in regard to the antecedents of perceived
ease of use, which were very different in both settings.
With regard to use, the results show a very weak or inexistent
link between behavioral intention and self-reported frequency of
use, and a surprising negative relation between facilitating conditions and use in setting 1. The inuence of habit was very strong
in setting 1 standardized path coefcient value of 0.85,
p < 0.001 but non-signicant in setting 2.
Based on Chin (1998) we also performed a multigroup analysis
to discover differences between the samples from the two settings
see Table 10. From Table 10, we found signicant differences in
ve relations between both settings: three of them were related to
the antecedents of perceived ease of use namely, the relations between perceived ease of use and computer anxiety, perceived play-

Table 4
Item factorial loadings after depuration of indicators (Setting 1, Higher education).
Selfefcacy
(SEFF)

Facilitating
conditions
(FC)

Perceived
playfulness
(PP)

Perceived
ease of use
(PEOU)

Perceived
interaction
(PI)

Subjective
norm (SN)

Personal
innovation in
IT (PIIT)

Relevance for
learning
(LREL)

Perceived
usefulness
performance (PU1)

Perceived
usefulness
exibility (PU2)

Behavioral
intention
(BI)

Habit
(HAB)

Selfreported
use (USE)

0.95
0.95

.F. Agudo-Peregrina et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 34 (2014) 301314

SEFF1
SEFF2
ANX1
ANX2
ANX3
ANX4
FC3
PP1
PP2
PEOU2
PEOU3
PEOU4
PI1
PI2
SN1
SN2
SN3
PIIT1
PIIT2
LREL1
LREL2
PU1
PU2
PU3
PU4
PU5
BI1
BI2
ZHAB1
ZHAB2
ZUSE1

Computer
anxiety
(ANX)

0.78
0.73
0.92
0.85
1.00
0.89
0.86
0.86
0.83
0.81
0.91
0.90
0.79
0.81
0.70
0.81
0.86
0.91
0.89
0.87
0.89
0.86
0.90
0.93
0.95
0.93
0.92
0.86
1.00

ZHAB: Habit indicators (normalized); ZUSE: Use (normalized).

307

308

Table 5
Item factorial loadings after depuration of indicators (Setting 2, Lifelong learning).
Selfefcacy
(SEFF)

Facilitating
Conditions
(FC)

Perceived
Playfulness
(PP)

Perceived
Ease of Use
(PEOU)

Perceived
Interaction
(PI)

Subjective
Norm (SN)

Personal
Innovation in
IT (PIIT)

Relevance for
learning
(LREL)

Perceived
Usefulness Performance (PU1)

Perceived
Usefulness Flexibility (PU2)

Behavioral
Intention
(BI)

Habit
(HAB)

Selfreported
Use (USE)

0.90
0.94
0.89
0.87
0.74
0.79

.F. Agudo-Peregrina et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 34 (2014) 301314

SEFF1
SEFF2
ANX1
ANX2
ANX3
ANX4
FC3
PP1
PP2
PEOU2
PEOU3
PEOU4
PI1
PI2
SN1
SN2
SN3
PIIT1
PIIT2
LREL1
LREL2
PU1
PU2
PU3
PU4
PU5
BI1
BI2
ZHAB1
ZHAB2
ZUSE1

Computer
Anxiety
(ANX)

1.00
0.93
0.94

ZHAB: Habit indicators (normalized); ZUSE: Use (normalized).

0.78
0.87
0.86
0.98
0.97
0.85
0.92
0.86
0.98
0.72
0.90
0.82
0.89
0.87
0.88
0.94
0.94
0.95
0.95
0.80
0.95
1.00

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.F. Agudo-Peregrina et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 34 (2014) 301314

Table 6
Convergent validity.

Computer anxiety (ANX)

Facilitating conditions (FC)
Relevance for learning (LREL)
Perceived playfulness (PP)
Personal innovativeness in the domain of IT (PIIT)
Perceived interaction (PI)
Self-efcacy (SEFF)
Subjective norm (SN)
Perceived ease of use (PEOU)
Perceived usefulness 1 (PU1)
Perceived usefulness 1 (PU2)
Behavioral intention (BI)
Habit (HAB)
Use (USE)

Composite Reliability

Cronbachs Alpha

AVE

Higher
education

Lifelong
learning

Higher
education

Lifelong
learning

Higher
education

Lifelong
learning

0.89
1.00
0.89
0.87
0.82
0.90
0.95
0.81
0.87
0.91
0.91
0.93
0.88
1.00

0.89
1.00
0.85
0.93
0.85
0.97
0.92
0.91
0.88
0.91
0.94
0.95
0.87
1.00

0.84
1.00
0.76
0.69
0.57
0.78
0.88
0.66
0.79
0.85
0.80
0.86
0.73
1.00

0.85
1.00
0.67
0.85
0.72
0.95
0.82
0.85
0.79
0.85
0.87
0.89
0.73
1.00

0.67
1.00
0.81
0.76
0.70
0.82
0.90
0.59
0.70
0.77
0.84
0.88
0.79
1.00

0.68
1.00
0.75
0.87
0.74
0.95
0.85
0.77
0.70
0.77
0.88
0.90
0.77
1.00

Table 7
Discriminant validity (Setting 1, Higher education): bivariate correlations. In the main diagonal, the squared-root AVE of each construct.
ANX
ANX
BI
FC
LREL
USE
PP
PEOU
PIIT
PI
PU
PU2
SEFF
SN
HAB

0.82
0.15
0.26
0.11
0.08
0.02
0.33
0.29
0.02
0.02
0.14
0.57
0.13
0.19

BI

FC

LREL

USE

PP

PEOU

PIIT

PI

PU1

PU2

SEFF

SN

HAB

0.94
0.17
0.77
0.15
0.47
0.19
0.38
0.55
0.59
0.46
0.09
0.51
0.17

1.00
0.29
0.07
0.18
0.41
0.16
0.20
0.41
0.27
0.47
0.31
0.28

0.90
0.07
0.47
0.18
0.42
0.41
0.66
0.51
0.07
0.58
0.09

1.00
0.10
0.13
0.37
0.24
0.22
0.03
0.17
0.06
0.81

0.87
0.24
0.35
0.34
0.48
0.28
0.23
0.41
0.22

0.84
0.55
0.19
0.43
0.35
0.50
0.33
0.35

0.83
0.37
0.40
0.48
0.47
0.30
0.32

0.90
0.47
0.36
0.15
0.30
0.28

0.88
0.42
0.16
0.51
0.33

0.91
0.26
0.30
0.06

0.95
0.23
0.32

0.77
0.18

0.89

Table 8
Discriminant validity (Setting 2, Lifelong learning): bivariate correlations. In the main diagonal, the squared-root AVE of each construct.

ANX
BI
FC
LREL
USE
PP
PEOU
PIIT
PI
PU
PU2
SEFF
SN
HAB

ANX

BI

FC

LREL

USE

PP

PEOU

PIIT

PI

PU1

PU2

SEFF

SN

HAB

0.82
0.14
0.01
0.16
0.16
0.08
0.35
0.15
0.05
0.31
0.32
0.44
0.14
0.22

0.95
0.35
0.60
0.14
0.60
0.36
0.40
0.42
0.53
0.41
0.33
0.49
0.29

1.00
0.58
0.11
0.56
0.50
0.21
0.49
0.36
0.35
0.17
0.19
0.09

0.86
0.01
0.60
0.55
0.41
0.38
0.62
0.45
0.33
0.37
0.22

1.00
0.02
0.05
0.18
0.08
0.06
0.07
0.08
0.01
0.08

0.93
0.59
0.46
0.56
0.64
0.36
0.32
0.53
0.34

0.84
0.25
0.46
0.55
0.46
0.39
0.35
0.20

0.86
0.33
0.32
0.44
0.52
0.28
0.35

0.97
0.46
0.31
0.15
0.31
0.08

0.88
0.42
0.24
0.42
0.25

0.94
0.48
0.15
0.32

0.92
0.13
0.45

0.88
0.08

0.88

fulness and personal innovativeness and the other two were related to system use behavior relations with facilitating conditions
and habit.
The structural model was also evaluated by observation of the
variance explained (R2) of the endogenous latent variables (Chin,
1998); predictive ability was calculated using the Stone-Geissers
(Q2) test (see Table 11).
Concerning R2 values, our research model offers a good explanation of e-learning systems acceptance by students in higher education more than 50 percent of the variance of behavioral intention

and almost 70 percent of the variance explained for use

behavior. However, although it also offers a good explanation of
intention to use e-learning systems by lifelong learning students,
it fails to explain use in this case a low 4 percent of variance
explained.
After a blindfolding procedure (Tenenhaus, Esposito Vinzi,
Chatelin, & Lauro, 2005) with an omission distance of 7 (Wold,
1982) we calculated the Stone-Geisser (Q2) values, with all values
greater than zero, which indicates that the relations between the
exogenous and endogenous constructs have predictive relevance.

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.F. Agudo-Peregrina et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 34 (2014) 301314

Table 9
Path coefcients and contrast of research hypotheses.
Hypotheses

H1a
H1b
H1c
H2a1
H2a2
H2b
H2c
H2d
H3a1
H3b1
H3c1
H3d1
H3a2
H3b2
H3c2
H3d2
H4a
H4b
H4c
H4d
H4e

Path coefcient

Behavioral intention ? use

Facilitating conditions ? use
Habit ? use
Perceived usefulness 1 ? behavioral intention
Perceived usefulness 2 ? behavioral intention
Perceived ease of use ? behavioral intention
Subjective norm ? behavioral intention
Perceived interaction ? behavioral intention
Perceived ease of use ? perceived usefulness 1
Subjective Norm ? perceived usefulness 1
Relevance for learning ? perceived usefulness 1
Perceived interaction ? perceived usefulness 1
Perceived ease of use ? perceived usefulness 2
Subjective norm ? perceived usefulness 2
Relevance for learning? perceived usefulness 2
Perceived interaction ? perceived usefulness 2
Self-efcacy ? perceived ease of use
Computer anxiety ? perceived ease of use
Facilitating conditions ? perceived ease of use
Perceived playfulness ? perceived ease of use
PIIT ? perceived ease of use

Supported?

Higher education

Lifelong learning

Higher education

Lifelong learning

0.03ns
0.18*
0.85***
0.31*
0.21*
0.15ns
0.26**
0.27*
0.28**
0.08ns
0.48***
0.20
0.27**
0.10ns
0.46***
0.15
0.15ns
0.06ns
0.25
0.01ns
0.42***

0.15
0.07ns
0.13ns
0.26*
0.24*
0.08ns
0.32**
0.16ns
0.20
0.15
0.39**
0.18
0.29*
0.09ns
0.29***
0.09ns
0.15ns
0.27***
0.26*
0.43*
0.12ns

No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes

Yes
No
Yes

No
No

No
Yes

No
No
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
No

Yes

Yes
No
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No

Note: Hypotheses marked with a dash represent no conclusive evidence for support, but marginally signicant relations found.
ns
non-signicant.

p < 0.1 (two-tailed).

*
p < 0.05 (two-tailed).
**
p < 0.01 (two-tailed).
***
p < 0.001 (two-tailed).

Fig. 2. Structural model analysis (Setting 1, higher education).

5. Discussion
5.1. Technology Acceptance Model 3 (TAM3) and use behavior
The results from the two settings in this study offer relevant
ndings which might be of interest both for scholars and practitioners. The most straightforward nding, which addresses the rst
research question, is that TAM3 does not offer a much better explanation than previous and more parsimonious models, such as TAM,

TAM2 or hybrid models such as the Combined TAM-TPB (C-TAMTPB) (Taylor & Todd, 1995). In fact, we observed that almost only
the core components of these models and their relations are sustained in this study for both settings i.e., direct inuence of subjective norm and perceived usefulness in behavioral intention, and
indirect inuence of perceived ease of use in behavioral intention
through perceived usefulness. Moreover, the differences found in
the relations of antecedents of perceived ease of use and the low
variance explained of system use in setting 2 suggest that the com-

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.F. Agudo-Peregrina et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 34 (2014) 301314

Fig. 3. Structural model analysis (Setting 2, Lifelong learning).

Table 10
Multigroup analysis. In bold, signicant differences between both settings.
Regression weight
Higher education
Computer anxiety ? perceived ease of use
Facilitating conditions ? perceived ease of use
Perceived playfulness ? perceived ease of use
Self-efcacy ? perceived ease of use
PIIT ? perceived ease of use
Perceived ease of use ? perceived usefulness 1
Perceived ease of use ? perceived usefulness 2
Relevance for learning ? perceived usefulness 1
Relevance for learning ? perceived usefulness 2
Perceived interaction ? perceived usefulness 1
Perceived interaction ? perceived usefulness 2
Subjective norm ? perceived usefulness 1
Subjective norm ? perceived usefulness 2
Perceived usefulness 1 ? behavioral intention
Perceived usefulness 2?behavioral intention
Perceived interaction ? behavioral intention
Subjective norm ? behavioral intention
Perceived ease of use ? behavioral intention
Facilitating conditions ? use
Behavioral intention ? use
Habit ? use

0.06
0.25
0.01
0.15
0.42
0.28
0.27
0.48
0.46
0.20
0.15
0.08
0.10
0.31
0.21
0.27
0.26
0.15
0.18
0.03
0.85

0.27
0.26
0.43
0.15
0.12
0.20
0.29
0.39
0.29
0.18
0.09
0.15
0.09
0.27
0.24
0.16
0.32
0.08
0.07
0.15
0.13

Table 11
Variance explained (R2) and Q2.
R2

PEOU
PU
PU2
BI
USE

Std. Err
Lifelong learning

Q2

Higher
education

Lifelong
learning

Higher
education

Lifelong
learning

0.43
0.57
0.36
0.53
0.68

0.51
0.50
0.28
0.44
0.04

0.27
0.45
0.29
0.48
0.69

0.34
0.37
0.23
0.36
0.07

t-Statistic

Higher education

Lifelong learning

0.09
0.13
0.07
0.12
0.12
0.11
0.11
0.12
0.13
0.11
0.09
0.07
0.10
0.15
0.09
0.11
0.09
0.11
0.07
0.04
0.05

0.08
0.11
0.09
0.09
0.08
0.10
0.15
0.13
0.09
0.10
0.10
0.08
0.07
0.13
0.12
0.10
0.11
0.09
0.08
0.09
0.09

1.808
0.072
3.517
0.008
3.837
0.552
0.103
0.522
1.117
0.101
0.459
0.645
0.079
0.208
0.176
0.768
0.450
0.518
2.358
1.202
8.976

p-Value

0.036
0.471
0.000
0.497
0.000
0.291
0.459
0.301
0.133
0.460
0.324
0.260
0.469
0.418
0.430
0.222
0.327
0.303
0.010
0.116
0.000

plexity introduced by TAM3 does not help to understand better the

acceptance and use process. These results, however, may be related
to the characteristics of the sample and should be conrmed by future research. It is noteworthy that the factor with strongest inuence in behavioral intention in setting 2 was subjective norm,
contrary to most acceptance studies where perceived usefulness
is usually the most important predictor of behavioral intention; a
reason behind this result might be that in the present economic situation there is a high pressure over workers and unemployed people to take lifelong learning online courses in order to access new
opportunities in the labour market.

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.F. Agudo-Peregrina et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 34 (2014) 301314

The second research question bears a more difcult answer.

Turner et al.s (2010) review of TAM-based studies concluded that
behavioral intention is likely to be correlated to actual usage, especially when actual use measures are self-reported. However, we
found that there was no signicant relation in one of the settings
and only a weak link with a very low variance explained for system
use in the other. Moreover, we found only a low correlation between self-reported intensity of use and actual time spent using
the system a similar result to Straub et al. (1995). Nonetheless,
this result might be biased by the difculty to measure online
study work performed by the students outside the system, and
therefore we believe it would be necessary to extend the study
to include all the activity carried out in the students personal
learning environment (PLE) before being able to generalize these
results.
The non-signicant relation between behavioral intention and
self-reported usage, and a close look at the empirical results demand a further insight in how i.e., scales for the measurement
instrument (Burton-Jones & Straub, 2006), self-reported vs. actual
use (Pynoo et al., 2011) and when both variables are measured
in educational contexts. Moreover, the results suggest a trade-off
effect between habit and behavioral intention as predictors of
use, which is in line with previous research on information systems
acceptance Limayem, Hirt, and Cheung (2007) present it as a
moderation effect. Given that the offer of graduate courses is generally renewed half-yearly while the offer of lifelong learning
courses is not regular, this nding might also emphasize that the
relative relevance of habit and intention in the acceptance and
use of e-learning systems may be inuenced by the stability of
the context (Ouellette & Wood, 1998).
Furthermore, since students may perceive that they have no
control over which courses are offered and especially when the
courses are delivered, intention to use an electronic learning system may be related to a declared learning modality preference
rather than to classical denitions of behavioral intention in TRA
or TAM, which might be too general for its use in educational
settings.
Interestingly enough, it was found that facilitating conditions
predicted negatively actual measured use of the system. The measurement instrument for facilitating conditions was reduced, after
item depuration, to one question (I have the resources necessary
to use e-learning systems), and we have not found similar results
in previous literature. While we are unable to explain this result,
we believe that it is necessary to give a unied conceptualization
of this variable, since it may be seen from very different perspectives depending on the study and the context, ranging from the
availability of basic resources to perform the behavior to aspects
related to the existence of external support.
5.2. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
From the results, perceived usefulness may be separated into
two different constructs, one related to performance and the other
to an increase in exibility enabled by electronic learning systems;
that is, the decomposition of perceived usefulness means that
students perceive a difference between efciency and performance
related advantages of e-learning, on one side, and those related to
exibility and self-paced learning, on the other. Considering that
exibility in the choice of learning strategies is highly related to
learning achievements (Paechter et al., 2010), and following the
previous discussion on behavioral intention in e-learning contexts,
this nding leaves a door open to the formulation of different
intervention and course planning strategies depending on the
characteristics of the study group and considering the aspects of
self-regulation and self-directed learning, in order to foster
e-learning use preference.

With regard to perceived ease of use, prior research has made it

evident that very high levels of complexity may cause a decrease in
the intention to use the system, especially in the case of users with
low experience in the use of the system. Therefore, it is possible
that the lack of mention of specic systems may have had inuence on the non-signicant relation between perceived ease of
use and behavioral intention; thus, we would recommend maintaining this relation in future studies focused on the study of a certain educational technology.
5.3. Antecedents of perceived usefulness
The role of perceived interaction is also worth noting, since we
found no conclusive evidence of its relation to perceived usefulness, but it was signicantly related to behavioral intention in setting 1, which suggests that higher education students give a
relative important to the creation of social ties in online learning,
resembling a traditional classroom, while lifelong learning students focus more on learning outcomes and consider courses more
as an individual, self-directed way to learn.
Finally, the role of relevance for learning stands out as the most
important predictor of perceived usefulness; this suggests that,
prior to implementation of any electronic learning system, it is
imperative to conrm that prospective students perceive that elearning systems are the appropriate way to deliver the course,
which in turn will facilitate to communicate the advantages associated to online delivery of courses. Nevertheless, while it may be
clear for some that job relevance or relevance for learning is a prerequisite for successful implementation of e-learning systems, we
should question the role of the construct given its high correlation
with other constructs such as behavioral intention, and which suggest that it may be more a nal determinant of technology acceptance, as in the Technology-Task Fit model (Goodhue & Thompson,
1995) than an antecedent of perceived usefulness.
5.4. Antecedents of perceived ease of use
The signicant differences found in the analysis of the antecedents of perceived ease of use between settings are also remarkable,
as they give insightful information about the different behaviors
and perceptions of students towards e-learning. Thus, it was interesting to observe that individuals perceived ease of use in setting 1
is strongly predicted by perceived innovativeness, whereas this did
not happen in setting 2, where perceived ease of use was strongly
predicted by perceived playfulness positively and computer
anxiety negatively. We believe that this result may be fully explained by the nature of lifelong learning courses; in general, lifelong learning courses are considered as a complement of
organizational training and, since they try to build on specic competences, they are generally independent from one another. Since
they also tend to occur during a relatively short span of time, an error would likely have more impact on passing the course, which
contributes to increase anxiety. In addition to this, students who
take lifelong learning courses generally use their own spare time
to complete the courses, and therefore need more intrinsic motivational elements for heightened enjoyment which help to create a
more user-friendly environment. It was noteworthy that higher
education students do not have this kind of pressure and anxiety,
as online courses are generally an optional part of a bigger whole
the academic program.
5.5. Habit
Habit is a strong determinant of actual use of e-learning systems for higher education students, but not for lifelong learning
students. There may be a simple explanation for this: public uni-

.F. Agudo-Peregrina et al. / Computers in Human Behavior 34 (2014) 301314

versities in Madrid usually offer a set of online elective courses

which give credit for academic major; since the online course dates
are planned to avoid overlapping with the schedule of major
courses, students opting in for online elective credits in the rst
years seem to tend to repeat this behavior and become habitual
users of e-learning systems; adding to this, the high inuence of
personal innovativeness in perceived ease of use for higher education students suggest that, in order to foster use of e-learning systems, there is an opportunity to engage rst-year students willing
to try online courses into e-learning as a complementary way to
complete their studies.
6. Conclusion
This is, to the best of our knowledge, one of the rst studies to
test a TAM3-based model in educational contexts. The results of
the two empirical settings suggest that the increased complexity
of TAM3 does not result in a signicant improvement in the explanation of the acceptance and use process when compared to prior
and more simple TAM-based models.
This research also tested the intention-behavior link, which is
often taken for granted in acceptance studies but has not been
put into question until recently (Bagozzi, 2007). From the results
of the two empirical settings, it may follow that there is no significant relation between intention to use a system and actual behavior. This seems particularly true in the presence of habitual
behaviors. This result, however, was mainly based on self-reported
system usage, and it is our belief that efforts should be made in order to clearly discern the nature of this relation and to develop consistent measures for subjective and objective report of system
usage in scholar research. This task may be especially difcult in
learning environments, given the diversity of e-learning systems,
learning styles, course types, mandatory/optional contexts, etc.
Perceived usefulness and subjective norm were identied as the
most relevant predictors of behavioral intention to use e-learning
systems, but the present study also found that there are two different dimensions of perceived usefulness when considering the use
of e-learning systems, one of which is associated to performance
and the other to exibility. Finally, ndings from this study also
suggest that antecedents of perceived ease of use are highly dependent on the type of course and the characteristics and learning
objectives of students.
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