Exploring factors affecting art therapists’ intention to embrace virtual reality using UTAUT1

Abstract

VR has opened up new possibilities in art therapy. However, integrating VR's therapeutic potential into art therapy in a seamless manner necessitates art therapists' interest in, preparation for, and adoption of VR. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to explore factors affecting art therapists’ intention to embrace VR and provide relevant insights required to effectively integrate VR into art therapy. To this end, we employed the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology1(UTAUT1) model to investigate whether variables—performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions—could predict art therapists’ intention to adopt VR as an art medium. For this investigation, we considered the potential moderating effects of art therapists’ age, prior VR experience, and self-efficacy. We then conducted an online survey targeting Korean art therapists and analyzed the data from 152 participants using regression analysis to examine the main and interaction effects. The research results are as follows. First, all four factors mentioned above had a main effect on the intention to embrace VR. Second, social influence and effort expectancy had different age-specific interaction effects on the intention to embrace VR. Third, we observed varying degrees of interaction effects between effort expectancy and the intention to embrace VR, depending on previous VR experience. We believe that these analytical findings will lay the foundation for facilitating VR-driven art therapy.