System Characteristics in Predicting E-Learning Acceptance: An Extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) Study

Abstract

Learning habits among students in higher institution, has radically changed over the last two decades, partially due to the features of the information and digital society, wide scale broadband internet access, proliferation of smart devices and consequently, available online mobile applications. Thus, in higher education, e-learning systems are essential, and the COVID-19 pandemic era has seen an increase in popularity of e-learning. Thus, it is critical to establish the extent to which students in higher education adopt e-learning. This paper focuses at developing a framework for e-learning technologies through the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by incorporating system characteristics as its’ extended variable, which consists of three main constructs: system quality, content quality and information quality among university students in Malaysia. Regarding the system characteristics, the findings suggested that all three components that make up system characteristics had a significant positive influence on students’ perceived ease of use of the e-learning system, whereas only system quality and information quality had a significant positive impact on students’ perceived usefulness of the e-learning system. With respect to TAM, all relationships were found to be significant.