Running Head: CAN AGE AND TETCHNOLOG EXPERIENCE PREDICT

EMPLOYEES INTENTION TO USE ONLINE TRAINING

CAN AGE AND TETCHNOLOGY EXPERIENCE PREDICT EMPLOYEES

INTENTION TO USE ONLINE TRAINING

Abdullah Albalawi & Naif Jabli

ETR 522/ Fall 2016

Northern Illinois University

Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

Introduction

Online training is considered to be one of the most useful tools used to improve learners

skills and knowledge about variety of topics to enhance their professional performance aspects.

Online training is mostly used in the academic environment to improve students academic

performance and faculty teaching performance. Little studies have investigated the online

training in the corporate business especially in Saudi Arabia and most of these studies were

focusing on measuring students performance and faculty professional development. It has been

mentioned by number of studies that behavioral intention considered to be as a significant factor

that could positively explain the users acceptance of new technology. Users intention of new

technology is important to determine which aspects would influence their decision to adopt the

new technology.

In addition, many studies have suggested that organizations should consider measuring

the intention of their learners toward online training before implementing that technology

(Aldahmash, Alshamrani, Alqudah, and Mansour 2013; Ertmer, Bai, Dong, Khalil, Hee Park, &

Wang, 2002; Vu, Cao, Vu, & Cepero, 2014). Learners behavioral intention toward use of

technologies is an important factor in determining the success of the training programs. While

technology is being increasingly integrated into professional development programs, our

understanding of its influence on the behavioral intention of the learners can facilitate and

enhance their learning.

However, implementing online training without considering trainees intention to use the

new technology might be a disadvantage to both organizations and trainees. Because trainees

intention to use new technology would affect their participation and their learning progress.

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

Learners intention to use technology is an active measure that can be used to understand the

drivers of technology adoption.

Therefore, this study investigates two variables that might influence trainees intention to

use online training at their workplace. This study aims to examine how age and technology

experience predict trainees intention to use online training.

Literature Review

Several peer reviewed articles were reviewed for the purpose of this study. First, Amro,

Mundy & Cupczynski (2015) conducted an experimental study which involves two groups of

students about online learning and face to face learning. The authors wanted to see the mean

differences between groups to see how participants view online and face to face learning. They

used both multiple regression and ANCOVA as their statistical methods because they wanted to

see 1) which factors significantly predict students achievement and 2) ANCOVA was used

because their study involved control groups of their participants demographic data like age and

gender. The results of their study showed that age was not significantly related to students

achievement in online courses.

On the other hand, Liu et al. (2010), conducted their study to investigate the adoption

level among participants about using online learning community as a tool to improve their

English proficiency. The authors used a quantitative research to investigate whether the extended

variables of Technology Acceptance model (age was one of them) can predict students adoption

of online English learning community. The results of their study showed that the extended

variables can successfully predict students adoption level of online learning community.

Similarly, Chang & Tung (2008) studied the behavioral intention of their students by

combining both Technology Acceptance Model and IDM to investigate which factors would

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

significantly predict their students intention to use web-based learning courses. They found that

compatibility, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived system quality and

computer self-efficacy were significant predictors for learners behavioral intentions to use the

online learning course websites.

As indicated by Al-Azawei and Lundqvist (2015), that gender by itself is not the sole

measure of determining the satisfaction of online professionals and that other factors played a

role. They noted that efficacy was not consistent across all participants, gender was just one of

several factors. The significant variable was not gender; instead it was the perceived usefulness

of the tools or training program in general. While Teo, Wong & Chai (2008) indicated that

learners behavioral intention was influenced by the technological skills of the learners. They

mentioned that learners with high technological skills would tend to have positive intention to

use online learning.

Finally, Gibson, Harris & Colaric (2008), used the constructs of the Technology

Acceptance Model, namely perceived usefulness and ease of use to investigate which variable

would predict the intention of their learners. Looking at the coefficient table of their study, the

results showed that perceived usefulness is a significant factor of learners acceptance. Which

means that learners perceived online learning as a useful tool that they can use to increase their

skills and knowledge. However, the other variable which was perceived ease of use variable was

considered to be not significant predicting of online learning. This means that perceived ease of

use alone cannot predict learners intention to use online learning.

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

Methodology

146 participants responded to the survey questionnaire of this study. The study was

conducted on current employees of King Abdullah Medical City in Saudi Arabia. It aimed to

examine if age and technology experience (independent variables) can predict the employees

behavioral intention (dependent variable which is a continuous variable) to use online training.

Because the level of measurement for the dependent variable is scale, the researchers computed

the mean scores of all the items that were associated with the scale. The participants were

between the age of 18 to 55 years old. Most of the participants have an experienced with

technology in their lives. The researchers included null and alternative hypothesis for their study

which are:

H0= both age and technology experience cannot predict learners behavioral intention.

H1= both Age and technology experience can predict learners behavioral intention.

To statistically analyze the data gathered here in this study the researchers used multiple

linear regression to see which variable significantly predict the outcome (employees intention)

to use online training.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

As a first step, the data were screened to check if there were any missing values and

outliers. Since the missing values were more than 5% of the values, which could be a

problematic. The researchers used the option offered in the SPSS called exclude cases pairwise

to avoid this problem. After doing this step, the missing values became less than 5% as shown in

table 1. It can be seen that age and Technology experience have a valid number of 139

participants out of 146 and behavioral intention has 141 of 146 participants. Also, there was

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

three extreme outliers regarding the behavioral intention, but because the sample size is large, it

would not considered to be a problematic.

Table 1

Regarding participants age, which was divided into five groups: group 1 represents ages

from 18-25, group 2 represents ages from 26-36, group 3 represents ages from 37-47, group 4

represents ages from 48-59. By looking at the age histogram, we can see that most participants

fall down into group 2, which is ages starts from 26 to 36.

Second, participants were asked to rate their technology experience, and they had to

select one of four multiple choice answers, which are 1) none, 2) very little, 3) some, and 4) very

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

much. As shown below, the histogram indicates that most participants rated their technology

experience as very little technology experience. Third, participants were asked to rate their

intention to use online training by selecting one of a Five-Likert Scale items, which are 1)

strongly disagree, 2) disagree, 3) neutral, 4) agree and 5) strongly agree. As we can see in the

histogram that most participants rate their intention to online training as strongly agree.

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

Inferential Statistics

Figure 1 Figure 2

As shown in (Figure 1), the original histogram of learners behavioral intention was

negatively skewed. So for that reason, we did a square root transformation by taking the

maximum number plus one from the descriptive table and added it to the new transformed

variable. However, as shown in (Figure 2), the regression standardized residual is still not

normally distributed.

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

After transforming the intention variable using the square root, the scatterplot shows

normality of variance and the assumption of the homoscedasticity has been met.

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

From the model summary table, we can say that only 5.3% of behavioral intention can be

predicted by age and technology experience. In the ANOVA table we can see that p value is less

than .05, which means that the predictors can significantly predict behavioral intention. Since the

alpha criteria is .05 we reject the null hypothesis because (p = .027). In the coefficient we can see

that only age can significantly predict behavioral intention.

Discussion

Overall the predictors of age and technology experience can significantly predict the

behavioral intention of learners to use online training. The findings of this study is consistent

with previous studies that showed similar results such as Liu et al (2010), and Chang & Tung

(2008). When we look at the predictors individually, only age can significantly predict the

behavioral intention Also, age variable was considered to be a significant variable in Liu et al

(2010), study in predicting learners intention to use online training. Even though technology

experience cannot predict behavioral intention, one study showed that learners behavioral

intention was influenced by computer skills.

Implication and Future Research

This study recommends looking to other factors such as educational background,

academic position, and number of online training courses, which may predict behavioral

intention to use online training. Also, the study suggests investigating interaction between

variables: differences among age toward technology experience to see how age can predict

learners behavioral intention to use online training. This study provides implication for

organizations in Saudi Arabia to consider the age variable before designing online courses to

determine which course would work as according to participants age.

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

Reference:

Al-Azawei, A., & Lundqvist, K. (2015). Learner Differences in Perceived Satisfaction of an

Online Learning: An Extension to the Technology Acceptance Model in an Arabic

Sample. Electronic Journal of eLearning, 13(5), 408-426.

Aldahmash, S, Alshamrani, S, Alqudah, B, & Mansour, N. (2013) Perceived professional

development needs for Saudi Arabian science teachers. Eurasian Journal of Educational

Research. 51(51), 29-44.

Amro, H. J., Mundy, M. A., & Kupczynski, L. (2015). The effects of Age and Gender on student

achievement in face-to-face and online college algebra classes. Research in Higher

Education Journal, 27, 1.

Ertmer, P. A., Bai, H., Dong, C., Khalil, M., Hee Park, S., & Wang, L. (2002). Online

professional development: Building administrators capacity for technology

leadership. Journal of Computing in teacher Education, 19(1), 5-11.

Cao, V, Cepero, J, Vu, L, & Vu, P. (2014). Factors driving learner success in online

professional development. International Review of Research in Open and Distance

Learning, 15(3), 121-139.

Chang, S. C., & Tung, F. C. (2008). An empirical investigation of students' behavioral intentions

to use the online learning course websites. British Journal of Educational Technology,

39(1), 71-83.

Gibson, S. G., Harris, M. L., & Colaric, S. M. (2008). Technology acceptance in an academic

context: Faculty acceptance of online education. Journal of Education for Business,

83(6), 355-359.

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Can Age and Technology Experience Predict Employees Intention to Use Online Training

Liu, I. F., Chen, M. C., Sun, Y. S., Wible, D., & Kuo, C. H. (2010). Extending the TAM model

to explore the factors that affect Intention to Use an Online Learning Community.

Computers & education, 54(2), 600-610.

Teo, T., Wong, S. L., & Chai, C. S. (2008). A Cross-cultural Examination of the Intention to Use

Technology between Singaporean and Malaysian pre service Teachers: An Application of

the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Educational Technology & Society, 11(4),

265-280.

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